Frombrain +child.[1]
brainchild (pluralbrainchildsorbrainchildren)
- (informal) Acreation of one'sbrain; anoriginalidea orinnovation of aperson orgroup of people, anorganization, etc.
The entire project was thebrainchild of a small group of visionaries.
1629 (first performance),B[en] Jonson,The New Inne. Or, The Light Heart. […], London: […] Thomas Harper, for Thomas Alchorne, […], published1631,→OCLC, Act I, scene i,signature B, recto:Abrayne-child o' mine ovvne! and I am proud on't!
1877 July 3 (date written), Thomas J. Mumford, “Editorial Life.[Letter to Mrs. W.]”, inLife and Letters of Thomas J. Mumford, […], Boston, Mass.: George H. Ellis, […], published1879,→OCLC,page110:I am glad you find so many lovers of yourbrain children in the West, although I knew it would be so.
1920 April 10 – August 28,Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, chapter 17, inThe Little Warrior[Jill the Reckless], New York, N.Y.:George H[enry] Doran Company, published 8 October 1920,→OCLC, section 1,page312:Then, gradually, the almost maternal yearning to see hisbrain-child [a play] once more, which can never be wholly crushed out of a young dramatist, returned to him—faintly at first, then getting stronger by degrees till it could no longer be resisted. True, he knew that when he beheld it, the offspring of his brain would have been mangled almost out of recognition, but that did not deter him.
1946,Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow,Bernard Wolfe, “Quit Foolin’ with That Comb”, inReally the Blues, New York, N.Y.:Random House,book 1 (1899–1923: A Nothin’ but a Child),page54:Inspiration's old lady gave birth to a newbrainchild one afternoon at a Rhythm Kings rehearsal, when I took a few choruses on Jack Pettis' C-melody sax while he was out humoring his bladder.
1975 May 14,Otto E[rnest] Passman, chairman, “International Development Association”, inForeign Assistance and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1976: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session[...] Part 1[...], Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office,→OCLC,page728:We had these people for years and years, such as Mr.[Robert] McNamara and all of hisbrainchilds, come up here, and he said everything is going to work out fine and everybody followed him. Look what a mess we got into in Southeast Asia.
1995,Daniel C[lement] Dennett, “Threads of Actuality in Design Space”, inDarwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, New York, N.Y.:Simon & Schuster,→ISBN, part I (Starting in the Middle),page144:Not only all your children and your children’s children, but all yourbrainchildren and yourbrainchildren’sbrainchildren must grow from the common stock of Design elements, genes and memes, that have so far been accumulated and conserved by the inexorable lifting algorithms, the ramps and cranes and cranes-atop-cranes of natural selection and its products.
1995, Anna LaFond, “Contextual Hostility”, inSustaining Primary Health Care, London:Earthscan Publications,→ISBN,page57:Recent health 'movements' such as the Child Survival Development Revolution and Universal Childhood Immunization, are allbrainchilds of international or (Western) national aid institutions.
2000,Daniel C[lement] Dennett, “The Battery”, inJohn Brockman, editor,The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2,000 Years, London:Weidenfeld & Nicolson,→ISBN,page74:Electricity powers all the sensors (cameras, microphones, accelerometers, radio receivers, collision detectors, etc.) and effectors (motors, solenoids, switches) of our robotic artifacts, and even if thesebrainchildren of ours can be made to live off sunlight (or plutonium), they will need batteries to store that energy until it is required.
2005,Tony Judt, “The Politics of Stability”, inPostwar: A History of Europe since 1945, London: Pimlico,Random House, published2007,→ISBN, part 2 (Prosperity and Its Discontents: 1953–1971),page244:But even though the Pleven Plan was thebrainchild of a French prime minister, public debate had revealed the extent of French reluctance to countenance German rearmament under any conditions.
2007, Rod Long, “Sussex-by-the-Sea”, inSouth Coast Saunter: Part One—‘Aspirations’, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Vanguard Press, Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers,→ISBN,page278:At the extreme end of the promenade, backing on to the river, was a small funfair. Edward had informed us earlier that this had been in existence since 1929 and had been one of the very earlybrainchilds of SirBilly Butlin.
2014, Richard W. Hartel, AnnaKate Hartel, “Everlasting Gobstoppers and Atomic Fireballs”, inCandy Bites: The Science of Sweets, New York, N.Y.: Copernicus Books,Springer,→ISBN,page183:The Everlasting Gobstopper, a jawbreaker that changes colors and flavors, was thebrainchild ofRoald Dahl inCharlie and the Chocolate Factory in 1964. They were intended as poor kids candy since they magically kept regenerating, no matter how long you sucked on them.
2022 October 19, “Network News: Two New Walsall-Wolverhampton Stations Planned to Open in 2024”, inRail, number968, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire:Bauer Media,→ISSN,→OCLC, page14:Their joint cost is £54 million, and the scheme is thebrainchild of the West Midlands Combined Authority.
Chiefly used in the form “the brainchild of [a person or group of people, an organization, etc.]”.
brainchild (third-person singular simple presentbrainchilds,present participlebrainchilding,simple past and past participlebrainchilded)
- (transitive, rare) Tothink up (anidea orinnovation); tocome up with.
- Coordinate terms:brainstorm,ideate
2015, Mary Lindemann,The Merchant Republics:John Lawbrainchilded the establishment of a national bank to expedite and secure the creation of credit.
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, March 2024;“brainchild,n.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.
brainchild (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia