Word Study
white elephant
CIDE DICTIONARY
white elephant,
Something requiring much care and expense to maintain and yielding little profit, and often difficult to sell; any burdensome possession. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
THESAURUS
white elephant
Christmas present, award, birthday present, box, burden, burthen, cadeau, cargo, charge, cross, cumbrance, deadweight, difficulty, disadvantage, embarrassment, encumbrance, fairing, freight, gift, hamper, handicap, handsel, impediment, impedimenta, imposition, inconvenience, load, lumber, oblation, offering, onus, pack, peace offering, penalty, present, presentation, tribute, trouble, weightROGET THESAURUS
white elephant
Bane
N bane, curse, evil, hurtfulness, painfulness, scourge, damnosa hereditas, white elephant, sting, fang, thorn, tang, bramble, brier, nettle, poison, toxin, teratogen, leaven, virus venom, arsenic, antimony, tartar emetic, strychnine, nicotine, miasma, miasm, mephitis, malaria, azote, sewer gas, pest, Albany hemp, arsenious oxide, arsenious acid, bichloride of mercury, carbonic acid, carbonic gas, choke damp, corrosive sublimate, fire damp, hydrocyanic acid, cyanide, Prussic acid, hydrogen cyanide, marsh gas, nux vomica, ratsbane, hemlock, hellebore, nightshade, belladonna, henbane, aconite, banewort, bhang, ganja, hashish, Upas tree, Toxline (online), rust, worm, helminth, moth, moth and rust, fungus, mildew, dry rot, canker, cankerworm, cancer, torpedo, viper, demon, toxicology, baneful, poisonous, phr, bibere venenum in auro, Contingent Subservience.For further exploring for "white elephant" in Webster Dictionary Online