white elephant
noun phrase

- something that has cost a lot of money but has no useful purpose

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary

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PHRASE ORIGIN

White elephants are rare albino elephants considered sacred in Southeast Asian cultures, especially in Thailand (formerly Siam), Myanmar, and Laos.

In Siamese royal tradition, if someone displeased the king, they might be “gifted” a white elephant. Since these elephants couldn’t be put to work due to their sacred status, and yet were extremely expensive to feed and maintain, the gift would financially ruin the recipient—all while being an honour that couldn’t be refused.

In the 1700s–1800s British colonials in Southeast Asia brought the concept back to the English-speaking world. By the 19th century, “white elephant” began appearing in English usage to describe any burdensome possession—something costly to maintain but without practical value.

Modern usage includes failed infrastructure, obsolete tech, or even unwanted gifts.

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BILLION-DOLLAR BLUNDERS

Brasília, Brazil (1960)
Timeline: Built over five years from 1956-1960, inaugurated by President Juscelino Kubitschek on April 21, 1960
Cost: $1.5 billion in 1954 USD ($17.2 billion in 2023 USD)
Issues: Fewer than 10% of the 2.5 million people in greater Brasília actually live in the planned city - most live in 27 satellite towns and commute. Critics called it "miles of jerry-built platonic nowhere" - designed for political aspirations rather than real human needs.

Concorde Supersonic Transport (1976-2003)
Timeline: First commercial flights January 1976, final flight November 26, 2003
Cost: French and British governments spent $6 billion to develop, round-trip tickets cost up to $10,000 in 1990s ($20,000 today)
Issues: Burned 4x times more fuel than Boeing 747, could only carry 100 passengers vs 747's 500, noise complaints, and financial losses throughout operation.

Olympic Stadium Montreal, Canada
Timeline: Built for 1976 Olympics, paid off in 2006
Cost: CA$1.5 billion, nicknamed "The Big Owe" due to extravagant costs
Issues: Too big for Montreal's sports teams, struggled to find permanent tenant.

Berlin Brandenburg Airport Berlin, Germany
Timeline: Originally planned to open in October 2011, finally opened October 31, 2020 - 9 years late
Cost: €2.83 billion budget ballooned to nearly €7.3 billion (3x over budget)
Issues: Poor construction planning, execution, management, and corruption. Fire protection and alarm systems failed mandatory acceptance tests.

California High-Speed Rail Project, USA
Timeline: Originally planned to be completed by 2020, now targeting Merced-to-Bakersfield segment by 2033
Cost: Initial estimate $33 billion for full system, now $106 billion (3x over budget), with $15.7 billion already spent
Issues: Major factor contributing to delays and cost overruns has been difficulty acquiring land parcels necessary for construction.

White elephants typically result from a toxic combination of unrealistic scope, poor stakeholder management, market misjudgment, governance failures, and technological overreach. The key is rigorous early-stage validation, stakeholder engagement, and the courage to stop or restructure failing projects before they become monuments to hubris.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

albatross (around one's neck), bad investment, ball and chain, black hole, boondoggle, bottomless pit, burdensome asset (possession), castaway, costly blunder (folly, mistake), dead asset (duck, loss, weight), encumbrance, expensive burden (mistake, possession), extravagance gone wrong, failed vanity project, financial albatross (burden, drain, liability, sinkhole), fiscal trap, folly, fool’s monument, fruitless expense, gilded burden, gold-plated folly, good money after bad, high-maintenance nothing, hopeless enterprise, illusion of grandeur, lemon, liability (project), loss-maker, lost cause, millstone (around one's neck), money down the drain (the toilet), money drain (pit, sink), monkey on one's back, monument to folly, negative asset, non-performing asset, nonperformer, operational nightmare, pointless project, political football, prestige carcass (project), red-ink machine, resource drain (hog), rusting relic, sinkhole (investment), sunk cost, tax-wasting blunder, turkey, unprofitable investment (monument, venture), unwanted gift, useless possession, vanity disaster (project), waste of capital (money), WHITE ELEPHANT, worthless asset, write-off, zero-return project

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

“Some jobs feel like a WHITE ELEPHANT—expensive, draining, and hard to escape.”

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