brain

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English [edit]

Wikipedia has articles on:

Wikipedia

A human brain.

Etymology [edit]

From Middle English brain, from Old English bræġen (“brain”), from Proto-Germanic *bragną (“brain”), from Proto-Indo-European *mreghmno-, *mreghmo- (“skull, brain”), from Proto-Indo-European *mreK- (“marrow, sinciput”). Cognate with Scots braine, brane (“brain”), North Frisian brayen, brein (“brain”), West Frisian brein (“brain”), Dutch brein (“brain”), Low German Brägen (“brain”), Bregen Ancient Greek βρεχμος (brechmos, “front part of the skull, top of the head”).

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

Wikipedia has an article on:

Wikipedia brain (plural brains)

  1. The control center of the central nervous system of an animal located in the skull which is responsible for perception, cognition, attention, memory, emotion, and action.
  2. (informal) An intelligent person.
    He was a total brain.
  3. (UK, plural only) A person who provides the intelligence required for something.
    He is the brains behind the scheme.
  4. (in the plural) Intellect.
    He has a lot of brains.
    • 2008 Quaker Action (magazine) Rights trampled in rush to deport immigrant workers, Fall 2008, Vol. 89, No. 3, p. 8:
      "We provided a lot of brains and a lot of heart to the response when it was needed," says Sandra Sanchez, director of AFSC's Immigrants' Voice Program in Des Moines.
  5. By analogy with a human brain, the part of a machine or computer that performs calculations.
    The computer's brain is capable of millions of calculations a second.

Synonyms [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

terms derived from brain (noun)

See also [edit]

Translations [edit]

organ
intelligent person
person providing intelligence
brains: intellect
part of computer
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb [edit]

brain (third-person singular simple present brains, present participle braining, simple past and past participle brained)

  1. (transitive) To dash out the brains of; to kill by smashing the skull.
  2. (transitive, slang) To strike (someone) on the head.
  3. (transitive, figuratively) To destroy; to put an end to.
    • Shakespeare
      There thou mayst brain him.
    • Shakespeare
      It was the swift celerity of the death […] That brained my purpose.
  4. (transitive) To conceive in the mind; to understand.
    • Shakespeare
      'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen / Tongue, and brain not.

Quotations [edit]

Translations [edit]

to strike on the head
to kill a person by smashing the skull

Anagrams [edit]

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