| Idiom | White Elephant |
|---|---|
| Example | There's a white-elephant sale on Saturday. Bring all your junk to sell. |
| Meaning | any possession that is useless, unwanted, or costs a lot of money to keep |
| Origin | There is a legend that in ancient Siam (now Thailand) a king once gave a rare white elephant to a person at his court whom he didn't like. Sounds like a nice gift, but the white elephant was considered sacred, couldn't be made to do any work, and cost a fortune to feed and tend. The courtier couldn't get rid of this big drain on his money because it was a gift from the king. In a short time, the unfortunate man was poor. That's probably what the king intended. The expression first was used in English in the late 1800s. |
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