Forms: 1 bræʓen (breʓn), bræʓn, braʓen, 3 braȝen, breine, 3–6 brayn(e, 4–7 braine, 5–6 brane, 3– brain. [OE. bræʓ(e)n = LG. brägen, Du. and Fris. brein (not found in HG., Scand. or Goth.):—OTeut. type *bragno(m), perh. related to Gr. βραχμός forehead.]
1. The convoluted mass of nervous substance contained in the skull of man and other vertebrates. By some earlier scientific writers restricted to the anterior portion (in Latin cerebrum) as opposed to the posterior portion (BRAINLET, cerebellum); but this distinction is now expressed by the Lat. words, which have been adopted in scientific use, and brain in technical as well as in popular language includes the entire organ; it is also applied by extension to the analogous but less developed organs of invertebrate animals.
In 16th c. it became usual to employ the pl. instead of the sing. when mere cerebral substance, and not a definite organic structure, was meant; this usage still continues: we say ‘a dish of brains,’ ‘a disease of the brain.’
c. 1000. Ags. Ps. vii. 16. On his bræʓn astiʓe his unriht.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 358. Bares bræʓen ʓesoden … ealle sar hyt ʓeliðeʓaþ.
a. 1100. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, Voc., 305. Cerebrum, braʓen.
c. 1205. Lay., 1468. His blod and his brain [c. 1275 braȝen] ba weoren to-dascte.
1297. R. Glouc., 446. Kyng Henry brayn, and gottes, and eyen ybured were At Reynys in Normandye.
1393. Gower, Conf., II. 176. The wit and reson … Is in the celles of the brain.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 209 (Mätz.). Lo here a crowne of thorne, to perche his brane within.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, B iiij. Rewarde youre hawke with the Brayne and the necke.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, V. 78. The quadruplication of Dura mater … lyeth betwene the brayne and Cerebellum.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. v. 7. Ile haue my braines tane out and butter’d.
1653. Walton, Angler, 179. Pearch … have in their brain a stone.
1772. Priestley, Inst. Relig. (1782), II. 389. The power of thinking … depends … upon the brain.
1824–8. Landor, Imag. Conv. (1846), 460. The power of thinking is no more in the brain than in the hair.
1880. Huxley, Cray-Fish, iii. 105. A transversely elongated mass of ganglionic substance termed the Brain or cerebral ganglion.
b. Phrases. To dash, knock out a person’s brains: i.e., by a blow. To blow out (any) one’s brains: to shoot oneself or another in the head.
1607. Shaks., Timon, I. i. 193. To knocke out an honest Athenians braines.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. vi. Establish himself in Bedlam; begin writing Satanic Poetry; or blow out his brains.
1859. [J. D. Burn], Autobiog. Beggar Boy, 95. [He] demanded his money, or he would blow out his brains.
1864. Tennyson, Boädicea, 68. Dash the brains of the little one out.
† 2. transf. Marrow; the pith or heart of the growth at the top of a date-palm. Obs.
1552. Huloet, Brayne, or marrow of the legge, musculus.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 386. These [date-trees] haue in the very head and top, a certain pleasant … marow, which they terme, The braine.
3. Considered as the center of sensation, the organ of thought, memory or imagination. (From 16th c. onwards the pl. has been preferred in familiar use and idiomatic phrases, but not in dignified language, exc. when more than one brain is referred to.)
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 35. Of breines turnunge þin heaued [schule] ake.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, 24. To grete feblenesse of her brayne.
1536. Remed. Sedition, p. ii b. Full of bones, but voyde of brayne.
1604. James I., Counterbl., 103. The Nose being the proper Organ and conuoy of the sense of smelling to the braines.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., II. 674. Ye sacred muses, with whose Beauty fir’d My Soul is ravish’d, and my Brain inspir’d.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil (1863), 275. ‘You have a clear brain and a bold spirit; you have no scruples … You ought to succeed.’
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. 512. Was that plan the conception of any one brain?
fig. 1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, ii. (1878), 17. The accomplished Mysseri … was in fact the brain of our corps.
1861. M. Arnold, Pop. Educ. France, Pref. 23. Frenchmen proclaim … Paris to be the brain of Europe.
b. Phrases. To break (obs.), beat, busy, cudgel, drag, puzzle one’s brains: to exert oneself in thought or contrivance. To crack one’s brain(s): to render oneself insane. To have anything (e.g., music, bicycling, any object of admiration or antipathy) on the brain: to be crazy on the subject of. To turn one’s brain: to render giddy, hence fig. to bewilder, to render vain or imprudent. † A dry brain (Shaks.): a dull or barren brain void of thinking power. † A hot brain: an inventive fancy. † Boiled brains: hot-headed fellows.
1530. Palsgr., 350. We breake our braynes for nought.
1577. Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., in Holinshed, VI. 32. To beat his braines in the curious insearching of deep mysteries.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. vii. 38. Ibid. (1602), Ham., V. i. 63. Cudgell thy braines no more about it. Ibid. (1611), Wint. T., III. iii. 64; IV. iv. 701.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., VIII. 513. An eminence, tho’ fansy’d, turns the brain.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, IV. 136. While I dragg’d my brains for such a song.
1848. Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., II. iii. I puzzled my brains about choosing my line.
4. fig. Intellectual power, intellect, sense, thought, imagination. (From 16th c. often plural.)
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 4. That is nought for lake of braine.
1526. Tindale, 1 Tim. vi. 4. He wasteth his braynes aboute questions.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. ix. 12. David did not vpon his oun brayn appoint God a dwelling place there.
1618. Barnevelt’s Apol., G iij. Hee that hath any brayne, sees hee is not well in his wittes.
1732. Pope, Ess. Man, II. 47. Tricks to shew the stretch of human brain.
1764. Churchill, Candidate, 29 (R.).
| Let Those, who boast th’ uncommon gift of brains, | |
| The Laurel pluck, and wear it for their pains. |
1861. T. Brown, Horæ Subs., Ser. I. 171. ‘Pray, Mr. Opie, may I ask what you mix your colours with?’… ‘With brains, sir!’ was the gruff reply.
b. Phrases. † To bear a brain: to be cautious, thoughtful, have brains. To suck (or pick) a person’s brains: to elicit and appropriate the results of his thought. † Of the same brain: in the same strain of thought, similarly conceived. (But cf. Of the same bran.)
1526. Skelton, Magnyf., 1422. I counsel you, bere a brayne.
1592. G. Harvey, Pierces Super., 120. Some potestats … will by fittes beare a braine.
1652. Bp. Hall, Invis. World, I. viii. These [tales] and a thousand more of the same brain.
1808. Scott, Marmion, VI. xvi. Eustace, thou bear’st a brain.
5. Comb.; general relations.
a. attributive: Of the physical brain, as brain-ache, -atoms, -chamber, -giddiness, -matter, -softening, -symptom; of the brain as the seat of intelligence, as brain-chart, -fancy, -labo(u)r, -power, -war, -work.
1862. Lytton, Str. Story, II. 280. His crown, with its *brain-ache of care.
1870. Gladstone, Prim. Homer (1878), 61. The poetical unity of Homer’s *brain-chart.
1657. Brome, Queene’s Exch., IV. i. The *brain-giddiness of these wilful Lords.
1864. Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 447. Prodigal of all *brain-labour he.
1878. Hooker & Ball, Marocco, 150. By their superior *brain-power.
1883. T. M. Coan, in Harper’s Mag., June, 125/1. Diseases of … *brain-softening or degeneration of the spinal cord … are better treated at other springs than Carlsbad.
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch., III. xi. 252. Men who are wise do no *brainwork save in summer.
b. objective and objective-genitive; as brain-wright sb.; brain-breaking, -fretting, -purging, -smoking, -spattering, adjs.
1616. Holyday, Persius, 37. *Brain-purging, hellebore.
a. 1654. Selden, Engl. Epin., iii. § 19. Such as were too indulgent to the desires of their sensual appetite by ingurgitation of *brain-smoaking liquors.
1823. Byron, Juan, IX. iv. War’s a *brain-spattering … art.
1601. Davies, Mirum in Mod., 7 (D.).
| In this part of the Brayne the *Brayn-wrights skill, | |
| And wisdome infinite do most appeare. |
c. instrumental and locative: as brain-begot, -born, -bred, -cracked, -crazed, -fevered, -spun, -strong, adjs., also brain-worker sb.; brainlike adj.
1596. Fitz-Geffrey, Sir F. Drake (1881), 22. Joves *braine-borne Pallades.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., II. vii. With *brain-born dreams of evil.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wks., III. 122/2. His *braine-bred Daughter.
1657. Brome, Queene’s Exch., III. Wks. 1873, III. 497. I fear he’s *brain-crack’d, lunatick. Ibid. (1652), North. Lasse, I. v. Wks. III. 11. The Master and the man both *brain-cras’d.
1849. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 141/2. Cerebral substance … replaced by a *brain-like matter.
1832. J. C. Hare, in Philol. Mus., I. 643. *Brain-spun systems of metaphysics.
1863. Dasent, Jest & Earnest (1873), II. 273. True it is, as the saw goes, ‘Bairns are *brain-strong.’
1878. Holbrook, Hygiene of Brain, 91. A farmer may be a *brain-worker.
6. Special combinations: † brain-being, -brat, a creature of the fancy; brain-box, the skull; † brain-break, a conception that overtasks the brain; brain-case (= brain-box); brain-cell, one of the cells forming the tissue of the brain; brain-coral, coral resembling in form the convolutions of the brain; brain-crack, a craze or crotchet; brain-fever, a term for inflammation of the brain, ‘and also for other fevers, as typhus, with brain complications’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); brain-lit a., enlightened by thought; brain-shed, the scattering of brains; † brain-squirt, a childish attempt at reasoning; brain-stage, the imagination; brain-stone (= brain-coral); brain-trick, a cunning device; brain-tunic, a membrane enveloping the brain; brain-worm, a worm infesting the brain; fig. a wriggling disputant. Also BRAIN-PAN, BRAINSICK, BRAIN-WOOD.
1659. Fuller, App. Inj. Innoc. (1840), 450. A mere wit-work, or *brain-being, without any other real existence.
1630. R. H., in J. Taylor (Water P.), Wks., Pref. Verses. One Bacchus, and some other Venus urges, To blesse their *brain-brats.
1741. Monro, Anat. (ed. 3), 78. The several Bones of which the *Brain-case consists.
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum. (1866), 107. What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without … his charming *brain-cracks?
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 367. I had a *brain fever, which lasted six or seven days.
1857. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., I. xxiii. 83. The subordinates have resisted in a way that ended in blood and *brain-shed.
1654. G. Goddard, in Burton, Diary, Introd. (1828), I. 68. They were but bugbears and *brain-squirts.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. (1851), 364. This *Brain-worm against all the Laws of Dispute, will needs deal with them heer.
