Idiom of the day :- White elephant

Usage, examples and definition of the Idiom :-

Something which is expensive but useless / something which is costly to keep and has no apparent benefit A : I don’t like my brother so when my uncle died and left him his MG sports car in his will, I was really pleased. B : That’s funny ! Weren’t you jealous ? A : No, not at all. You see the car is a complete white elephant; it uses an enormous amount of petrol and breaks down all the time. It’s costing my brother a fortune. This expression comes from Thailand where a long time ago there was a custom which the king would follow. every time a white elephant was born in the country, the king would claim the rare animal immediately and keep it for himself. However if someone made the king angry or displeased him he would give the white elephant to that person. the reason was that the elephant was very expensive to look after and so would very quickly ruin the person who had annoyed the king.