| 释义 |
white elephant  nounA possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of: a huge white elephant of a house that needed ten thousand spent on it...- The wave of ‘urban renewal’ in the 1950s and '60s gave us the devastated inner cities of today, and many projects become expensive, taxpayer-funded white elephants.
- Opponents say they will be hugely expensive white elephants which could cost taxpayers a fortune.
- Last month, Bradford Chamber of Commerce and Industry branded the idea of a Yorkshire assembly as an expensive white elephant.
Origin From the story that the kings of Siam gave such animals as a gift to courtiers they disliked, in order to ruin the recipient by the great expense incurred in maintaining the animal. |