An albatross is a large seabird famous for its enormous wingspan, which can stretch over 11 feet from tip to tip. These magnificent birds spend most of their lives gliding over the ocean, riding wind currents for hours without flapping their wings. They can travel thousands of miles across open water, sometimes circling the entire globe. Albatrosses return to land only to nest and raise their young, often on remote islands.

The albatross became famous in literature through Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” where a sailor kills an albatross and brings terrible luck upon his ship. Because of this story, people started using albatross to mean a heavy burden or problem that someone can't escape. When a basketball team signs a player to an expensive contract and he gets injured, fans might call that contract an albatross around the team's neck. If you make a mistake that keeps causing you trouble later, you might say it's become an albatross.

The connection makes sense: just as the dead bird is hung around the sailor's neck as punishment, an albatross of a problem weighs you down and follows you around, making everything harder.