BRAIN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Brain

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/breɪn/ Listen

noun

Brain n.

(Anat.) The whitish mass of soft matter (the center of the nervous system, and the seat of consciousness and volition) which is inclosed in the cartilaginous or bony cranium of vertebrate animals. It is simply the anterior termination of the spinal cord, and is developed from three embryonic vesicles, whose cavities are connected with the central canal of the cord; the cavities of the vesicles become the central cavities, or ventricles, and the walls thicken unequally and become the three segments, the fore-, mid-, and hind-brain. Note: In the brain of man the cerebral lobes, or largest part of the forebrain, are enormously developed so as to overhang the cerebellum, the great lobe of the hindbrain, and completely cover the lobes of the midbrain. The surface of the cerebrum is divided into irregular ridges, or convolutions, separated by grooves (the so-called fissures and sulci), and the two hemispheres are connected at the bottom of the longitudinal fissure by a great transverse band of nervous matter, the corpus callosum, while the two halves of the cerebellum are connected on the under side of the brain by the bridge, or pons Varolii.

(Zool.) The anterior or cephalic ganglion in insects and other invertebrates.

The organ or seat of intellect; hence, the understanding; as, use your brains. " My brain is too dull." Note: In this sense, often used in the plural.

The affections; fancy; imagination. (R.)

A very intelligent person. (informal)

The controlling electronic mechanism for a robot, guided missile, computer, or other device exhibiting some degree of self-regulation. (informal)

To have on the brain, to have constantly in one's thoughts, as a sort of monomania. (Low)

no-brainer a decision requiring little or no thought; an obvious choice. (slang)

Brain box or Brain case, the bony or cartilaginous case inclosing the brain.

Brain coral, Brain stone coral (Zool.), a massive reef-building coral having the surface covered by ridges separated by furrows so as to resemble somewhat the surface of the brain, esp. such corals of the genera Maeandrina and Diploria.

Brain fag (Med.), brain weariness. See Cerebropathy.

Brain fever (Med.), fever in which the brain is specially affected; any acute cerebral affection attended by fever.

Brain sand, calcareous matter found in the pineal gland.

verb

Brain v. t. (past & past part. brained; pres. part. braining)

To dash out the brains of; to kill by beating out the brains. Hence, Fig.: To destroy; to put an end to; to defeat. "There thou mayst brain him." "It was the swift celerity of the death... That brained my purpose."

To conceive; to understand. (Obs.) "'T is still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen Tongue, and brain not."

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Etymology of 'Brain'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Brain" Quotes from Famous Books

... the life of an anchorite. In fact, the young Siddartha seems to have gone through that deep experience out of which the great prophets of mankind have always been born. The evils of the world pressed on his heart and brain; the very air seemed full of mortality; all things were passing away. Was anything permanent? anything stable? Nothing but truth; only the absolute, eternal law of things. "Let me see that," said he, "and I can give lasting peace to mankind. Then shall I become their deliverer." So, ...

— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... Popes made eel-breeding pay (At least Lord DESBOROUGH says they did), And cleared per annum in this way Twelve hundred jingling, tingling quid. In fact my brain in anguish reels To think we never took a leaf Out of the book which taught that eels Are better than ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... than one ought to do for the Merry Wives of Windsor. Had he Imagination? In its high literary and poetic form he rose to few conspicuous flights—such, for example, as Burke's descent of Hyder Ali upon the Carnatic—in vast and fantastic conceptions such as arose from time to time in the brain of Napoleon, he had no part or lot. But in force of moral and political imagination, in bold, excursive range, in the faculty of illuminating practical and objective calculations with lofty ideals of the ...

— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... wished to see—Max Ingolby, the man who stood between him and his Romany lass. Here was a chance of speaking face to face with the man who was robbing him. What he should do when they met must be according to circumstances. That did not matter. There was the impulse storming in his brain, and it drove him across the street as the Boss Doctor walked away, and Ingolby entered the shop. All Jethro realized was that the man who stood in his way, the big, rich, ...

— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... reporter made me say that English ignorance of America was so dense that "a gentleman of considerable attainments asked me if Connecticut was not the capital of Pittsburgh and notable for its great Mormon temple,"—an elaborate combination due solely to his own active brain. The same ingenuous (and ingenious) youth caused me to invent "an erratic young Londoner, who packed his bag and started at once for any out-of-the-way country for which a new guide-book was published." Another, with equal lack of ground, committed me to the unpatriotic assertion that neither in ...

— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

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