pink elephant
Tipsy phantom pachyderm
Pink elephant refers to a fantastical hallucination supposedly seen by someone who is very drunk or experiencing delirium tremens: He's so wasted he's seeing pink elephants.
The phrase has become shorthand for any alcohol-induced delusion.
Separately, the pink elephant in the room is something obvious that everyone is pretending not to notice—a colorful variant of the standard elephant metaphor.
Acute alcohol withdrawal crisis
- seeing thingsPerceiving nonexistent phenomena
- visionAbility to see
- apparitionVisible supernatural manifestation
- delusionStubbornly held false belief
illusion · figment · mirage · phantasm · withdrawal · alcoholism · tremors · fever dream
Not verbally expressed
- tabooCultural or social prohibition
- denialRefusal to accept reality
- avoidanceDeliberate keeping away
- unacknowledgedNot formally recognized
unmentionable · willful blindness · ignore · pretend · swept under rug · uncomfortable · conspicuous · glaring
Spanish surrealist painter
- dreamlikeHazy and fantastical
- fantasticalExtravagantly unreal or imaginary
- absurdWildly illogical
- bizarreStrikingly unconventional
whimsical · psychedelic · Dumbo · parade · circus · kitsch · novelty · inflatable
delirium tremens
Acute alcohol withdrawal crisis
- seeing thingsPerceiving nonexistent phenomena
- visionAbility to see
- apparitionVisible supernatural manifestation
delusion · illusion · figment · mirage · phantasm · withdrawal · alcoholism · tremors · fever dream · specter
unspoken
Not verbally expressed
unacknowledged · unmentionable · willful blindness · ignore · pretend · swept under rug · uncomfortable · conspicuous · glaring · undiscussed
Dalí
Spanish surrealist painter
- dreamlikeHazy and fantastical
- fantasticalExtravagantly unreal or imaginary
- absurdWildly illogical
bizarre · whimsical · psychedelic · Dumbo · parade · circus · kitsch · novelty · inflatable · lawn ornament
drunkenness
Impaired state from alcohol
- inebriationDrunken state
- tipsyMildly intoxicated
- buzzedMildly intoxicated
sloshed · hammered · plastered · wasted · blotto · boozy · stupor · besotted · bender · hangover
pink elephantreality
What actually exists
real thing · physical reality · genuine article · objective reality · hard evidence
pink, elephant, pinks, pinked, pinking, pinkish, pinker, pinkest, elephants