heffalump
Syllables: hef·fa·lump/ˈhɛfəlʌmp/US/ˈhɛfəˌlʌmp/
heffalump noun: (A child's name for) an elephant.
Noun (1)
heffalump (plural heffalumps)
- (A child's name for) an elephant.
- We went to the zoo and saw some heffalumps.
- Mrs. Jumbo stood at the door with the baby heffalump in her arms. She waved a large blue handkerchief and heffalump waved his little white paws. "Goodbye, Daddy Jumbo, Goodbye" they cried. "Goodbye Mummy Jumbo, goodbye baby heffalump."1973, The Malahat Review, Victoria, B.C.: University of Victoria, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82
- Something that is elusive.
- With the study in this chapter, we continue the hunt for the Heffalump to answer the 'who is the entrepreneur' question [...]. The Heffalump is a character from Winnie-the-Pooh that has been hunted by many individuals using various ingenious trapping devices, but no one has succeeded in capturing...2008, Eva Cools, “The Hunt for the Heffalump Continues: Who is the Flemish Entrepreneur?”, in Hans Landström, Hans Crijns, Eddy Laveren, David Smallbone, editors, Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Growth...
- In fact, some researchers are skeptical about the feasibility of constructing such an index and describe it as a "search for [a] heffalump" [...] or looking for a "Holy Grail" [...].2009, Zoltán J. Ács, László Szerb, “The History of Entrepreneurship Index Building”, in The Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEINDEX) (Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship; vol. 5, no. 5)...
- A clumsy or overweight person.
- Violet, under the auspices of Jacques-Yves Cabillaud, had been continuing to expand her childish girth. At two she had already been pronounced a heffalump; by seven, she was the size and shape of a barrel.1997, Liz Jensen, “The Scrapie Dinosaur”, in Ark Baby, London: Bloomsbury, published 2011, →ISBN
- As I sat in my Virgin seat, I spotted an enormous fat bloke waddling towards me and thought: Please, God, not him. There's nothing worse than sitting next to a heaving heffalump on an 11-hour flight, not least because they eat all the best food.2009, Piers Morgan, chapter 3, in Misadventures of a Big Mouth Brit, London: Ebury Press, published 2010, →ISBN, page 117
- Synonyms:
- All are derogatory unless otherwise labeled, butterball, chod, chodder, chubbs, chubster, chunker, chunky monkey, elephant, fat
- Antonyms:
- thin person
Noun (2) capitalized: Heffalump
Heffalump (plural Heffalumps)
- Alternative letter-case form of heffalump.
- With the study in this chapter, we continue the hunt for the Heffalump to answer the 'who is the entrepreneur' question [...]. The Heffalump is a character from Winnie-the-Pooh that has been hunted by many individuals using various ingenious trapping devices, but no one has succeeded in capturing...2008, Eva Cools, “The Hunt for the Heffalump Continues: Who is the Flemish Entrepreneur?”, in Hans Landström, Hans Crijns, Eddy Laveren, David Smallbone, editors, Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Growth...
Examples of heffalump in a sentence
- There are lions and tiggers and snakes and heffalumps.2007, Nuno Morais, chapter 1, in Margaret Hart, transl., Spare Parts (Unholy Commerce; 1), Chicago, Ill.: Babelcube, published April 2020...
- In the "Heffalumps and Woozles" ditty from Winnie the Pooh, elephants—those would be the heffalumps—wear tuxedos and use their trunks as accordions and suddenly turn blue.2014 May 11, Matt Simon, “Fantastically Wrong: History’s Most Hilarious Misconceptions about the Elephant”, in Wired, San Francisco...
- With the study in this chapter, we continue the hunt for the Heffalump to answer the 'who is the entrepreneur' question [...].2008, Eva Cools, “The Hunt for the Heffalump Continues: Who is the Flemish Entrepreneur?”, in Hans Landström, Hans Crijns, Eddy Laveren...
- Something that didn't make her feel like a heffalump.2010, Caroline Anderson, Christmas Eve Baby (Brides of Penhally Bay), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin Enterprises, →ISBN, page 60:
Synonyms of heffalump
- All are derogatory unless otherwise labeled
- butterball
- chod
- chodder
- chubbs
- chubster
- chunker
- chunky monkey
- elephant
- fat
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
- thin person
Forms of heffalump
| plural | heffalumps |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Heffalump |
| plural | Heffalumps |
Origin of heffalump
Probably a childish mispronunciation of elephant, perhaps influenced by half a lump (as in "I'll have half a lump of sugar in my tea"), coined by the English author Alan Alexander Milne (1882–1956) as the name of an imaginary animal in his book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). The animal was not described in the book, but the illustrator Ernest Howard Shepard (1879–1976) depicted it as an elephant. Sense 2 (“something which is elusive”) refers to the fact that in Milne’s book the characters Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet set a trap for, but are unable to capture, a heffalump.
Words formed from heffalump
Phrases with heffalump
Questions about heffalump
- What does heffalump mean?
- Heffalump means (A child's name for) an elephant.
- How do you use heffalump in a sentence?
- There are lions and tiggers and snakes and heffalumps.
- What part of speech is heffalump?
- Heffalump is a noun.
- How do you pronounce heffalump?
- Heffalump is pronounced /ˈhɛfəlʌmp/ (UK).
- What is the plural of heffalump?
- The plural of heffalump is heffalumps.
Words near heffalump in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: heffalump (page history and authors); Heffalump (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-heffalump.wav.
Cite this entry: “heffalump.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/heffalump. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.