The elephant.in the room expression has the following meaning.- An obvious problem that everybody pretends is not there.

The fact that I was leaving the company wasn’t mentioned by anybody in the meeting. It was the elephant in the room.

The fact that his sister aged 39 was still living at home was a big elephant in the room but his parents refused to talk about it.

They were talking about economic growth but the elephant in the room was the effect upon climate change.

These animal idioms are very common in modern English. You’ll almost certainly hear them. It’s important that you understand what they mean, even if you don’t use them yourself. Look through my Channel to find many more interesting videos of Animal Idioms.

In the comments below, please make suggestions for other animal idioms you would like me to cover here.