How to Use elephant in the room in a Sentence

elephant in the room

noun phrase
Definition of elephant in the roomnext
  • The elephant in the room is how to pay for the project.
    — Ron Wood, Arkansas Online, 20 Oct. 2023
  • Which brings us to the elephant in the room, um, or the big garbage patch in the room, in the ocean.
    — Quartz Staff, Quartz, 16 May 2023
  • The elephant in the room, or rather on the show lawn, is the issue of timing.
    — Viju Mathew, Robb Report, 28 Feb. 2024
  • So, what’s the best way to address the flushable elephant in the room?
    — Sharon Greenthal, Better Homes & Gardens, 12 Feb. 2024
  • Is the anti-ESG movement the elephant in the room here?
    — Bylila MacLellan, Fortune, 25 July 2023
  • Time to go on the hunt, even with an IPO-sized elephant in the room to contend with.
    — Allie Garfinkle, Fortune, 30 Jan. 2024
  • The prequels, on the other hand, felt more like an elephant in the room.
    — Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 11 July 2024
  • Address the elephant in the room as the sun and Chiron clash.
    — USA TODAY, 6 Jan. 2024
  • Shane Gillis acknowledged the elephant in the room right away – sort of.
    — Rebecca Sun, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Feb. 2024
  • At one point, Kosher addresses the elephant in the room.
    — Jayson Buford, Rolling Stone, 2 June 2023
  • Ellen DeGeneres will soon address the elephant in the room.
    — Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 13 May 2024
  • That is the elephant in the room that can't be ignored or unaddressed.
    — Simon Thompson, Forbes, 10 Sep. 2024
  • Coaching search won’t be rushed Weaver didn’t waste time addressing the elephant in the room.
    — Detroit Free Press, 11 Apr. 2023
  • The Dreyfus case itself remained the major elephant in the room.
    — Maurice Samuels / Made By History, TIME, 21 May 2024
  • That’s the elephant in the room that city leaders have refused to acknowledge.
    — Tim Gardner, The Mercury News, 22 June 2024
  • Time and again, society pressures people not to see, hear or speak about the elephant in the room.
    — Marianne Cooper, Scientific American, 18 June 2024
  • But there’s another elephant in the room, and that’s staff shortages.
    — Beth Ann Mayer, Parents, 2 Feb. 2024
  • But despite the absence of Xi, China would have been the elephant in the room throughout Putin and Kim’s meeting.
    — Nectar Gan, CNN, 23 June 2024
  • But the elephant in the room is reining in hospitals, which make up the largest portion of U.S. health care spending.
    — Rachel Cohrs, STAT, 26 Oct. 2023
  • Yet Ukraine’s shortage of weaponry in the face of nearly five months of Russia’s offensive hung over the whole day like the elephant in the room.
    — Constant Méheut, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2024
  • Yet there’s an elephant in the room – more than one actually.
    — Nate Davis, USA TODAY, 11 Jan. 2024
  • Yet that line of reasoning ignored a very large elephant in the room—the Colorado River.
    — Erik Vance, Scientific American, 1 Aug. 2017
  • With fatherhood as the subject of the new series, Frasier’s distance from Freddy feels like the elephant in the room.
    — Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 10 Oct. 2023
  • Analysis: Jonathan Taylor remains the elephant in the room here.
    — The Indianapolis Star, 26 Aug. 2023
  • Season Three also has to address the other elephant in the room: That some of the new characters still aren’t working.
    — Louis Staples, Rolling Stone, 27 Aug. 2023
  • However, the elephant in the room is that the Starliner is unable to leave the ISS except in an emergency.
    — David Szondy, New Atlas, 10 July 2024
  • In the end, what Las Vegas and other cities do hardly matters, for the elephant in the room remains agriculture.
    — Wade Davis, Rolling Stone, 3 Sep. 2023
  • These bills do not address the elephant in the room, Ticketmaster, and problems that stem from the initial ticket sales.
    — Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 24 Feb. 2024
  • But Village Keeper does ultimately spear the elephant in the room.
    — Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Sep. 2024
  • The state’s own promotional material prominently addresses the sale of public lands is the elephant in the room.
    — Wes Siler, Outside Online, 16 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'elephant in the room.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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