Dictionary

800-pound gorilla en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. (idiomatic) An entity that dominates its environment.
   • When it comes to the lucrative search market, Google, not Microsoft, is the 800-pound gorilla. 2008 February 6, “Who’s the 800-Pound Gorilla?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 09 Jun 2021:
   • Apache Spark is a cluster-computing framework. It’s the 800-pound gorilla you turn to when it’s impossible to fit your data in memory. 2021, Jeroen Janssens, chapter 10, in Data Science at the Command Line, 2nd edition, O'Reilly, →ISBN:
   • It was poetically fitting. For almost a year, Mr. Trump has been the 800-pound gorilla whose unpredictable rampages have obsessed the news media. Now he was completing the circle by commenting on the 400-pound gorilla who briefly stole the spotlight from him for one holiday weekend. 2016 May 31, James Poniewozik, “Trump, 800-Pound Media Gorilla, Pounds His Chest at Reporters”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 21 Mar 2022:
   • Q: Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep? A: Wherever it wants!
   • The thing he unfortunately doesn't recognise is there is an 800-pound gorilla when it comes to major American motor sports. The 800-pound gorilla is Nascar. 2014 February 26, Eddie Gossage, quotee, “Bernie Ecclestone dismisses Nascar objection to US Grand Prix date clash”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2014:
   • Back then, the mayor was an 800-pound gorilla in this town.
2. (idiomatic) Something dangerous, menacing, or frightening that is obvious but not addressed.
   • 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. 2018 March 13, Jessica Glenza, “Sky-high prices of everything make US healthcare the world's most expensive”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 13 Mar 2018:
   • Near-synonyms: elephant in the room, emperor's new clothes

Forms

Deriveds

800-pound gorilla in the room

Relateds

paromologia · paromology · acknowledge the corn

Synonyms

elephant in the room · emperor's new clothes · 800-pound gorilla in the room · gorilla in the room