Word.ws English Dictionary

sees the elephant

sees the elephant is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 sees the elephant

What is sees the elephant the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Sees the elephant is the third-person singular simple present indicative of see the elephant.

Words near sees the elephant in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sees 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “sees the elephant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sees_the_elephant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.