De-elephant: To discuss an existing but unacknowledged topic (i.e., “the elephant in the room”). Also de-elephantify, de-elephantize.
I learned of de-elephant just last week, via a tweet of Stan Carey’s:
— Stan Carey (@StanCarey) February 12, 2014
Paul McFedries of Word Spy provided two examples of de-elephant from the week of February 10, and found a 2009 citation for de-elephantize. About “elephant in the room,” McFedries noted that “[t]his sense of the phrase is not as old as you might think, with the earliest OED cite only going back to 1984.”
At least one traditionalist found de-elephant de trop:
I think de-elephant is funny and useful. I’ve added it to my vocabulary along with recombobulation.