elephant legs
- noun
- Informal
:
piernas de elefante
- Baggy jeans can sometimes make your legs look like elephant legs.
Examples
-
She felt self-conscious that her sweatpants gave her elephant legs.
-
His costume’s pants were so loose, they resembled elephant legs.
-
Look at those elephant legs!
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She wore baggy pants that made her look like she had elephant legs.
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Wearing those oversized sweatpants, he couldn't help but feel he had elephant legs.
-
The fashion trend of baggy trousers often gives people elephant legs.
-
She opted for a fitted top to balance out her baggy pants, which were making her legs seem like elephant legs.
Antonyms
How Large
- Informal
15
2.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'large or oversized legs' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'elephant' (a very large animal) with 'legs' (limbs), so a learner who knows both words can infer the intended metaphor of very big legs. This kind of animal-based size metaphor is cross-linguistically common and follows straightforward compositional logic, making it accessible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Elephant legs may come from the simple picture of very loose or baggy clothes that make a person's legs look big and thick like an elephant's. So, it means 'legs that appear large or oversized'.