Word.ws English Dictionary

800-pound gorilla

800-pound gorilla noun: an entity that dominates its environment.

Noun

800-pound gorilla (plural 800-pound gorillas)

  1. (idiomatic) An entity that dominates its environment.
    • Q: Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep? A: Wherever it wants!
    • 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.
    • Near-synonyms: elephant in the room, emperor's new clothes
    • The mayor's abuse of his power was an 800-pound gorilla in polite conversation.

Examples of 800-pound gorilla in a sentence

  • 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:
  • The thing he unfortunately doesn't recognise is there is an 800-pound gorilla when it comes to major American motor sports.2014 February 26, Eddie Gossage, quotee, “Bernie Ecclestone dismisses Nascar objection to US Grand Prix date clash”, in The Guardian...
  • Trump has been the 800-pound gorilla whose unpredictable rampages have obsessed the news media.2016 May 31, James Poniewozik, “Trump, 800-Pound Media Gorilla, Pounds His Chest at Reporters”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from...
  • 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:

Synonyms of 800-pound gorilla

Forms of 800-pound gorilla

plural800-pound gorillas

Origin of 800-pound gorilla

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

Words formed from 800-pound gorilla

Questions about 800-pound gorilla

What does 800-pound gorilla mean?
800-pound gorilla means an entity that dominates its environment.
How do you use 800-pound gorilla in a sentence?
When it comes to the lucrative search market, Google, not Microsoft, is the 800-pound gorilla.
What part of speech is 800-pound gorilla?
800-pound gorilla is a noun.
What is the plural of 800-pound gorilla?
The plural of 800-pound gorilla is 800-pound gorillas.

Words near 800-pound gorilla in the dictionary

  1. 800
  2. 800 meters
  3. 800 metres
  4. 800 number
  5. 800 numbers
  6. 800-pound gorilla
  7. 800-pound gorilla in the room
  8. 800-pound gorillas
  9. 800-pound gorillas in the room
  10. 80085
  11. 802.11e

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 800-pound gorilla (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-800-pound gorilla.ogg.

Cite this entry: “800-pound gorilla.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/800-pound_gorilla. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.