"elephant walk" meaning in English

See elephant walk in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: elephant walks [plural]
Etymology: From elephant + walk. Coined in the United States Air Force during World War 2, in reference to the appearance of large numbers of taxiing heavy bombers. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|elephant|walk}} elephant + walk Head templates: {{en-noun}} elephant walk (plural elephant walks)
  1. (US, military aviation) The taxiing of multiple aircraft in close formation before a mass take-off. Tags: US Categories (topical): Aviation, Military
    Sense id: en-elephant_walk-en-noun-63DTHiE5 Categories (other): American English Topics: aeronautics, aerospace, aviation, business, engineering, government, military, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, politics, war
  2. (slang) A men's hazing ritual in which the men walk with each one holding the penis of the man behind him and with his thumb in the anus of the man in front of him. Tags: slang
    Sense id: en-elephant_walk-en-noun-7phND1Ou Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 38 59 3
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see elephant, walk.
    Sense id: en-elephant_walk-en-noun-7kOktW1G

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for elephant walk meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "elephant",
        "3": "walk"
      },
      "expansion": "elephant + walk",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From elephant + walk. Coined in the United States Air Force during World War 2, in reference to the appearance of large numbers of taxiing heavy bombers.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "elephant walks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "elephant walk (plural elephant walks)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
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          "name": "Aviation",
          "orig": "en:Aviation",
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            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w"
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        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Military",
          "orig": "en:Military",
          "parents": [
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The taxiing of multiple aircraft in close formation before a mass take-off."
      ],
      "id": "en-elephant_walk-en-noun-63DTHiE5",
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
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        [
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        ],
        [
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        [
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        [
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        [
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, military aviation) The taxiing of multiple aircraft in close formation before a mass take-off."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "aeronautics",
        "aerospace",
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    {
      "categories": [
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          "_dis": "38 59 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Lynn M. Jamieson, Thomas Orr, Sport and Violence, page 51",
          "text": "[…] which the players moved in a line while gripping the genitalia of those in front of them similar to an \"elephant walk\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Jana Mathews, The Benefits of Friends, page 60",
          "text": "[…] members at Sacramento State University simulating the elephant walk (a ritual that involves men forming a line and walking as a group while grasping the penis of the man in front of them).",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A men's hazing ritual in which the men walk with each one holding the penis of the man behind him and with his thumb in the anus of the man in front of him."
      ],
      "id": "en-elephant_walk-en-noun-7phND1Ou",
      "links": [
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        [
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) A men's hazing ritual in which the men walk with each one holding the penis of the man behind him and with his thumb in the anus of the man in front of him."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see elephant, walk."
      ],
      "id": "en-elephant_walk-en-noun-7kOktW1G",
      "links": [
        [
          "elephant",
          "elephant#English"
        ],
        [
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        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "United States Air Force",
    "World War 2"
  ],
  "word": "elephant walk"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "elephant",
        "3": "walk"
      },
      "expansion": "elephant + walk",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From elephant + walk. Coined in the United States Air Force during World War 2, in reference to the appearance of large numbers of taxiing heavy bombers.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "elephant walks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "elephant walk (plural elephant walks)",
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "en:Aviation",
        "en:Military"
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      "glosses": [
        "The taxiing of multiple aircraft in close formation before a mass take-off."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "military",
          "military"
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          "aviation",
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        ],
        [
          "multiple",
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        [
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        ],
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, military aviation) The taxiing of multiple aircraft in close formation before a mass take-off."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US"
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      "topics": [
        "aeronautics",
        "aerospace",
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        "politics",
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2012, Lynn M. Jamieson, Thomas Orr, Sport and Violence, page 51",
          "text": "[…] which the players moved in a line while gripping the genitalia of those in front of them similar to an \"elephant walk\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Jana Mathews, The Benefits of Friends, page 60",
          "text": "[…] members at Sacramento State University simulating the elephant walk (a ritual that involves men forming a line and walking as a group while grasping the penis of the man in front of them).",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A men's hazing ritual in which the men walk with each one holding the penis of the man behind him and with his thumb in the anus of the man in front of him."
      ],
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          "hazing",
          "hazing"
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        [
          "thumb",
          "thumb"
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        [
          "anus",
          "anus"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) A men's hazing ritual in which the men walk with each one holding the penis of the man behind him and with his thumb in the anus of the man in front of him."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see elephant, walk."
      ],
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  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "United States Air Force",
    "World War 2"
  ],
  "word": "elephant walk"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.