white elephant

Definition of white elephantnext

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for white elephant
Noun
  • General catastrophizing Some people are naturally prone to anxiety and overthinking everything—like a work typo, or a throwaway joke that now feels catastrophic.
    Jenna Ryu, SELF, 19 Feb. 2026
  • The dude can make even a throwaway part seem vital.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 13 Feb. 2026
Noun
  • For more than 25 years, Probst has taken castaways and their fans to secluded locations for high-stakes adventures.
    Madeline Montgomery, CBS News, 25 Feb. 2026
  • Even more, Probst is stepping into the shoes of the castaways in Survivor 50.
    Katie Decker-Jacoby, StyleCaster, 25 Feb. 2026
Noun
  • The company shared a glimpse of what’s coming through a 39-second YouTube video, announcing its entry into the physical AI hardware space beyond mobile phones.
    Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 24 Feb. 2026
  • The second focuses on inclusion with companies committing to strengthening testing and evaluation of AI systems across underrepresented languages and cultural contexts, especially in the Global South, so that frontier AI models become more reliable and accessible beyond English‑speaking markets.
    Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 23 Feb. 2026
Noun
  • Piles of human scraps offer a bottomless buffet to wildlife, and to access that bounty, animals need to be bold enough to rummage through human rubbish but not so bold as to become a threat to people.
    Marina Wang, Scientific American, 14 Nov. 2025
  • Helga once wrestled down a drunk fisherman in the Café, a man of above-average size, and then threw him out like a piece of rubbish; Jens thus transfers most of his weight automatically to her; who is this kid, by the way?
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 10 Nov. 2025
Noun
  • The language allowed trash-taking sugar critics to be hauled into court, not only for dissing sugar, but for dissing how it is grown.
    Pat Beall, Sun Sentinel, 27 Feb. 2026
  • According to the report, officers responded to a dispatch call describing Petit as a transient carrying a gun and lighting trash on fire in a residential neighborhood.
    Andrea Klick, Daily News, 27 Feb. 2026
Noun
  • His platform focuses on the skyrocketing housing prices in California, lowering high taxes, addressing homelessness, and reducing government waste.
    David Mark, The Washington Examiner, 27 Feb. 2026
  • This is just another example of fraud, waste and abuse, which seems to be the trademark of this mayor’s office when dealing with taxpayers’ money.
    Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 27 Feb. 2026
Noun
  • Use a 2 1/2-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter to cut into about 32 circles, rerolling scraps once.
    Marianne Williams, Southern Living, 25 Feb. 2026
  • People seize on the tiniest scraps of evidence to justify their belief that Earth has already received interstellar visitors.
    Ross Andersen, The Atlantic, 25 Feb. 2026
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“White elephant.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/white%20elephant. Accessed 1 Mar. 2026.

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