Word.ws English Dictionary

seen the elephant

seen the elephant is the past participle of see the elephant.

Meaning of see the elephant

Verb

see the elephant (third-person singular simple present sees the elephant, present participle seeing the elephant, simple past saw the elephant, past participle seen the elephant)

  1. (US, obsolete, slang) To witness something unexpected and awe-inspiring.
  2. (US, obsolete, slang) To be up to the latest moves; to be knowing and worldly.
    • "[W]hy he's a natural born carakter. He is the best hand at a yarn in all west country, and will whip more cats, tell more lies, and eat more pork, than any fellow in Texas. […] [H]e's rare, jist the chap, and no mistake. He's seen the elephant, I imagine, a little more nor twice, I expect."1846, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, page 338
  3. (US, slang, American Civil War) To witness or participate in a battle.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see see, the, elephant.

Questions about seen the elephant

What is seen the elephant the past participle of?
Seen the elephant is the past participle of see the elephant.

Words near seen the elephant in the dictionary

  1. seen someone's etchings
  2. seen something green in one's eye
  3. seen stars
  4. seen the back of
  5. seen the day
  6. seen the elephant
  7. seen the error of one's ways
  8. seen the forest for the trees
  9. seen the glass half-empty
  10. seen the glass half-full
  11. seen the last of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: seen the elephant (page history and authors); see the elephant (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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