The first example of the adjective white elephantine, formed after the white elephant I found, comes from the Illustrated Times (London) of January 31, 1863: The terms “white elephant” and “gift from a white elephant” became common in the mid-nineteenth century. [6] The term was associated with “white elephant trades” and “white elephant sales” in the early twentieth century. [7] Many church bazaars held “white elephant sales” where donors could unload unwanted bells and whistles to take advantage of the phenomenon that “one person`s garbage is another`s treasure,” and the term continued to be used in this context. [8] The term derives from sacred white elephants kept by Southeast Asian monarchs in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. [2] Owning a white elephant was (and still is considered in Thailand and Burma) as a sign that the monarch ruled with justice and power, and that the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity. The opulence expected of anyone who owned an animal of such stature was great. Monarchs often illustrated their possession of white elephants in their official titles (e.g., Hsinbyushin, lit. “Lord of the White Elephant” and third monarch of the Konbaung dynasty). [3] Since animals were considered sacred and laws protected them from work, a monarch`s gift of a white elephant was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because the beast was sacred and a sign of favor from the monarch, and a curse because the recipient now had an expensive animal that he could not give away and not make much practical use. The Oxford English Dictionary (3. Auflage, 2015) erroneously points out [see footnote] that this figurative usage refers to the story that the kings of Siam (present-day Thailand) gave a white elephant to courtiers they disliked in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance.
The figurative use of the white elephant is first mentioned in Caton`s Letters: or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, And Other Important Subjects, by British writers John Trenchard (1662–1723) and Thomas Gordon (c. 1691–1750); The letter, entitled Of false Honour, publick and private, was originally published in the London Journal on 16 December 1721 and contains the following: These sample phrases are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word “white elephant”. The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. The term has also been applied to obsolete or underperforming military projects such as the U.S. Navy`s Alaska-class cruiser. [21] [22] In Austria, the term “white elephant” refers to workers who have little or no use but cannot be made redundant. [23] [Circular reference] 1. An idle vagabond, a vagabond; a member of a group or class of such persons. Now archaic or historical. For the legal definition, see Law 14 Eliz. c.
5 §5. In the West, the term “white elephant,” which refers to an expensive load that doesn`t meet expectations, was first used in the 17th century and spread in the 19th century. [4] According to one source, he became popular after P. T. Barnum had had experience of an elephant named Toung Talung, whom he called the “Holy White Elephant of Burma.” After much effort and effort, Barnum finally acquired the animal from the King of Siam, only to find that his “white elephant” was actually dirty gray with a few pink spots. [5] “White Elephant”. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20elephant. Retrieved 25 November 2022. The upper part of this pleasant bohemian world, this camaraderie of artists, authors, actors and men on the city (quorum pars magna fuit*) must have wondered what had become of this very ingenious entrepreneur, Mr. E. T. Smith.
It was known that, without getting lost, he had transferred the white elephant-like estate, the Drury Lane Theatre, to the assets of Mr. Falconer. (1755 edition) White elephants are rare in the wild and so appreciated in India that the king of Pegu, learning that the king of Siam had received two, sent a fit message to covet one of them from his royal brother at all costs: But as he had been rejected, he thought that his honor was interested in making war for such a great affront. So he entered Siam with an enormous army, and with the loss of five hundred thousand of his own men and the destruction of as many Siamese, he made himself the master of the elephant and regained his honor. Darius (I think it was Darius the Mede) found his honor in punishing the Scythians for invading Asia one hundred and thirty years earlier; and lost a great army to defend his honor, which has not yet been justified; That is, he missed the white elephant. In short, honor and victory are usually nothing more than white elephants; And for white elephants, the most destructive wars have often been fought. What the free man, whether by birth or by spirit, could see without pity or contempt, how, in the end of Frenchman reigns, he could often see a swarm of servile Frenchmen in hooves with hungry bellies and without a cloak, dancing around a mast of May because their Great Monarch, at the cost of a million of their money and thirty or forty thousand lives, had acquired a white elephant, or, in other words, had won a city or a victory? The examples are endless, or I could name other people who have spent several years catching white elephants at sea and on land; But I hasten to conclude. An unwanted or financially heavy possession or project that turns out to be of limited value: “The new office building turned out to be a white elephant when the company decided to move its headquarters.” In modern parlance, the term today often refers to an extremely expensive construction project that does not fulfill its function or becomes very expensive to maintain.
[9] [10] Examples include prestigious but inefficient infrastructure projects such as airports,[11] dams,[12] bridges,[13][14] shopping malls[15] and football stadiums. [16] [17] The Oakland Athletics U.S. baseball team has used a white elephant as a symbol since 1902 and usually its main or alternate logo, originally in sarcastic defiance of John McGraw`s characterization of the new team as a “white elephant” in 1902. [18] Dubai Central Airport was also known as the White Elephant. [19] In Singapore, in 2005, white elephant paper clippings were placed next to the completed but unopened Buangkok MRT station, leading to a police investigation. [20] The true white elephant (the species with a trunk) is a pale pachyderm that has long been revered in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar. Too revered to be a beast of burden, the white elephant gained a reputation as an annoying animal – one that needed constant care and feeding, but never brought a single penny (or paisa or satang or pya) to its owner. One story tells that the kings of Siam (Thailand`s ancient name) gave white elephants as gifts to those who wanted to ruin them, hoping that the cost of preserving the voracious but sacred mammal would lead its new owner into the house of the poor. An unwanted or useless object, as in The Hut by the Lake, had become a veritable white elephant – too dilapidated to sell but expensive to maintain, or grandma`s ornate silver is a white elephant; No one wants it, but it`s too precious to throw away.
This expression comes from an ancient legendary Siamese custom according to which an albino elephant, considered sacred, could only belong to the king. The king gave such an animal to a subject with whom he was not satisfied and waited until the high cost of feeding the animal, which could not be slaughtered, ruined the owner. The story was told in England in the 1600s, and in the 1800s the term began to be used figuratively. Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for White elephant No historical evidence supports this theory. On the contrary, these animals were considered far too precious to be given as gifts, so in 1568, the king of Pegu (present-day Bago, Burma) waged war against the king of Siam, who had refused to sell him a white elephant. there is a great amount of prouision and an infinite number of people, and the king of them is powerful: for which (as we have said) their king of Cyan pays tribute, because he came to him in a battalion he had made him in 1568. Figuratively, the white elephant refers to a heavy or expensive goal, undertaking, or possession, especially something that sounds great. A white elephant is a property that its owner cannot dispose of and whose costs, especially those of maintenance, are disproportionate to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is a metaphor used to describe an object, a construction project, a schematic, a company, a facility, etc.
to be described.