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800-pound gorilla

noun

Etymology

Attested since at least 1971, from a riddle: "Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep?" / "Anywhere it wants."

Definitions

  1. An entity that dominates its environment.

    • Q: Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep? A: Wherever it wants!
    • Back then, the mayor was an 800-pound gorilla in this town.
    • When it comes to the lucrative search market, Google, not Microsoft, is the 800-pound gorilla.

  2. Something dangerous, menacing, or frightening that is obvious but not addressed.

    • Near-synonyms: elephant in the room, emperor's new clothes
    • The mayor's abuse of his power was an 800-pound gorilla in polite conversation.
    • However, a co-author of the new study said those arguments ignore the “800-pound gorilla”: sky-high prices everywhere.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for 800-pound gorilla. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA