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800-pound gorillas

800-pound gorillas is the plural of 800-pound gorilla.

Meaning of 800-pound gorilla

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!
  2. (idiomatic) Something dangerous, menacing, or frightening that is obvious but not addressed.
    • Near-synonyms: elephant in the room, emperor's new clothes

Questions about 800-pound gorillas

What is 800-pound gorillas the plural of?
800-pound gorillas is the plural of 800-pound gorilla.

Words near 800-pound gorillas in the dictionary

  1. 800 metres
  2. 800 number
  3. 800 numbers
  4. 800-pound gorilla
  5. 800-pound gorilla in the room
  6. 800-pound gorillas
  7. 800-pound gorillas in the room
  8. 80085
  9. 802.11e
  10. 802.11i
  11. 807

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 800-pound gorillas (page history and authors); 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.

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