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# elephant

noun (an elephant, elephants)

«elephant» in the English dictionary: everyday — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. An elephant is a very large grey animal with a long trunk, big ears and usually tusks; it lives in Africa and Asia. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#m1)
2. «The elephant in the room» is a big problem everyone knows about but nobody talks about. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#m2)

### In the lessons

In science lessons elephants are mammals and herbivores; the African elephant is the largest land animal. In maths word problems elephants show big weights: an adult elephant can weigh about 6 tonnes. In stories and sayings: «an elephant never forgets». Phrases: the elephant in the room, white elephant (a costly, useless thing).

### Examples

- The elephant sprayed water with its trunk. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x1)
- African elephants have bigger ears than Asian elephants. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x2)
- An elephant eats plants all day. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x3)
- Baby elephants stay close to their mothers. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x4)
- The elephant weighs as much as five cars. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x5)
- Nobody mentioned the broken window — it was the elephant in the room. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x6)
- There are 3 elephants and each eats 150 kg of food a day. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/#x7)

### Note

Countable; «an elephant» because it starts with a vowel sound. A young elephant is a calf; a group is a herd. Spelling: -ph- sounds like f. Myth: elephants are afraid of mice — no real evidence.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «elephant» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/E/elephant/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«elephant» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/elephant.html) on Mova free.