Entries linking to brain trust
"soft, grayish mass filling the cranial cavity of a vertebrate," in the broadest sense, "organ of consciousness and the mind," Old English brægen "brain," from Proto-Germanic *bragnan (source also of Middle Low German bregen, Old Frisian and Dutch brein), of uncertain origin, perhaps from PIE root *mregh-m(n)o- "skull, brain" (source also of Greek brekhmos "front part of the skull, top of the head"). But Liberman writes that brain "has no established cognates outside West Germanic" and is not connected to the Greek word. More probably, he writes, its etymon is PIE *bhragno "something broken."
The custom of using the plural to refer to the substance (literal or figurative), as opposed to the organ, dates from 16c. Figurative sense of "intellectual power" is from late 14c.; meaning "a clever person" is first recorded 1914. To have something on the brain "be extremely eager for or interested in" is from 1862. Brain-fart "sudden loss of memory or train of thought; sudden inability to think logically" is by 1991 (brain-squirt is from 1650s as "feeble or abortive attempt at reasoning"). An Old English word for "head" was brægnloca, which might be translated as "brain locker." In Middle English, brainsick (Old English brægenseoc) meant "mad, addled."
from c. 1300 as "reliability, trustworthiness; trustiness, fidelity, faithfulness;" from late 14c. as "confident expectation" and "that on which one relies." From early 15c. in legal sense of "confidence placed in a one who holds or enjoys the use of property entrusted to him by its legal owner;" mid-15c. as "condition of being legally entrusted." Meaning "businesses organized to reduce competition" is recorded from 1877. Trust-buster is recorded from 1903.
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Dictionary entries near brain trust
braidism
braids
brail
Braille
brain
brain trust
brain-child
brain-coral
brain-dead
brain-drain
brainiac