A white elephant is a term used to describe an object of value that cannot be disposed of, sold, or traded by its owner and whose cost of ownership greatly exceeds its usefulness.
The expression comes from Southeast Asia where owning and keeping a white elephant is considered sacred. To this very day, owning a white elephant in certain Asian communities is considered both a blessing and a curse. If you have one, you must keep it and maintain it and you cannot put it to work, thus creating a burden on the owner to offset the cost of ownership.
Throughout history, “White Elephant” has gone on to describe big projects that cost a lot of money and whose purpose and use is far less than expected or abandoned altogether. Wikipedia has a list of white elephants to look at it.
