Elvis has left the building
- idiom
- Informal
:
Elvis ha dejado el edificio
- After the meeting ended, someone joked, "Elvis has left the building," signaling it was time to go.
Examples
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The concert was amazing, but now Elvis has left the building.
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The politician finished his speech and the host announced, "Elvis has left the building."
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Once the sale ended, customers knew Elvis has left the building—there were no more deals.
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Now Elvis has left the building.
-
After the meeting ended, someone joked, "Elvis has left the building," signaling it was time to go.
-
Once the sale ended, customers knew Elvis has left the building—there were no more deals.
-
The politician finished his speech and the host announced, "Elvis has left the building."
Synonyms
21
6.5
To go away from a place, often suddenly or for good
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
Elvis + have + leave + the + building
Although the literal components ('Elvis', 'has left', 'the building') are transparent, the conventionalized idiomatic meaning — that an event is over and nothing more will happen — is culturally specific and not derivable from the parts alone. A B1 learner who knows the words would likely only infer the literal scenario and would need prior exposure to the phrase's pragmatic use to understand the intended meaning.
Etymology
Elvis has left the building comes from concert announcements in the past when someone would tell the crowd that Elvis had really left the building so people would stop waiting for an encore. So today people say Elvis has left the building to mean an event is 'over' and there is 'nothing more to expect'.