heffalumpn.
/ˈhɛfəlʌmp/, U.S. /ˈhɛfəˌləmp/ colloquial.
1. An imaginary creature resembling an elephant. Also: an elephant.Heffalumps first appear in the children's book Winnie-the-Pooh (see quot. 1926) as frightening creatures of Pooh and Piglet's imagination. Although the heffalumps' appearance is not described by A. A. Milne, the original illustrator E. H. Shepard depicted them as elephants.
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the world > animals > mammals > group Ungulata (hoofed) > order Proboscidea (elephants) > [noun] > elephant
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elephant1340
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Lucanian ox1863
Lucanian cow1879
heffalump1926
1926 A. A. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh v. 66 He would go up very quietly to the Six Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into the Trap, and see if there was a Heffalump there.
1944 Prospector (Texas Coll. Mines & Metallurgy) 1 Apr. 2 The maid always lets the heffalumps out when she sweeps under the beds. Mary Alice spends all her time capturing heffalumps, and she does so wish the maid would be considerate.
1959 Manch. Guardian 14 July 6/3 Hannibal's heffalumps can hardly have had any such protection against the weather.
1981 Colorado Springs Gaz. Telegr. 4 Nov. g1/1 The side of beef ‘on special’ looks something like a cross between a Holstein heifer and a heffalump.
2003 Snoop Jan. 15/2 The 76-year-old heffalump, which lives at the Neyyattinkara Krishna Temple, will have to remove the sandals during services as do the humans.
2. depreciative and potentially offensive. A fat or ungainly person.
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1993 Times 17 July (Weekend) 18/6 We imagine ourselves to be slightly jagged images of endearing perfection. And everyone else to be stumbling heffalumps.
1996 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 26 Jan. 11 The ad's just there to make normal-sized women feel like dirty great heffalumps.
2010 D. Sheldon Crazy Things Girls do for Love (2011) i. 7 Maybe if you weren't such a heffalump, you wouldn't be in my way.
Compounds
heffalump trap n. British figurative a trap set for an unwary or foolish opponent; (also) a hidden or unsuspected source of difficulty; a pitfall. [With allusion to uses in A. A. Milne's stories (compare note at sense 1) such as that in quot. 1928, referring to a trap which Pooh and Piglet believe has been set by Heffalumps, but which is implied to be Pooh and Piglet's own trap set to catch Heffalumps.]
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1928 A. A. Milne House at Pooh Corner iii. 43 For suddenly he remembered how he and Piglet had once made a Pooh Trap for Heffalumps, and he guessed what had happened. He and Piglet had fallen into a Heffalump Trap for Poohs!]
1958 Spectator 22 Aug. 241/1 The Conservatives are not going to leap into the heffalump-trap in which their opponents..reside.
2001 Guardian 1 June b5/6 If you have thus far steered clear of this particular technological heffalump trap, there are a few other things you should know.
2018 Sunday Times (Nexis) 11 Mar. 25 What a silly question... It was obviously a heffalump trap aimed at unbalancing the prime minister.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1926