brainstorm

What it means

1. intransitiveTo investigate something, or solve a problem using brainstorming.

   On another occasion, when trying to brainstorm things I could do to make myself feel better despite all the pandemic restrictions, Woebot suggested I “try doing something nice for someone in your life,” like make a calming tea for my housemate or check in with a loved one.

   2022 September 27, Barclay Bram, “My Therapist, the Robot”, in The New York Times

   1 more example

   Meanwihle at Winterfell, another overdone scheme designed mainly to surprise the audience. In the black of her chambers, Sansa brainstorms with Littlefinger what Arya could want. “After she murders you, what does she become?” he asks. To which Sansa does everything but gasp and spit-take, widening her eyes and saying like she’s just realizing it for the first time, “Lady of Winterfell.”

   2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club

2. intransitiveTo participate in a brainstorming session.
3. transitiveTo think up (ideas); especially, to do so creatively.

   I need you to brainstorm some suggestions for next week's activity schedule.

In a sentence

Meanwihle at Winterfell, another overdone scheme designed mainly to surprise the audience. In the black of her chambers, Sansa brainstorms with Littlefinger what Arya could want. “After she murders you, what does she become?” he asks. To which Sansa does everything but gasp and spit-take, widening her eyes and saying like she’s just realizing it for the first time, “Lady of Winterfell.”

2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*mregʰ-
2. Proto-Indo-European*mrógʰ-n̥ ~ *mrégʰ-n̥-s
3. Proto-Germanic*bragną
4. Proto-West Germanic*bragn
5. Old Englishbræġn
6. Middle Englishbrayn
7. Englishbrain
8. Englishstorm
9. Englishbrainstorm

From brain + storm. In the sense of "problem-solve", devised as a method of group creative problem-solving by advertising executive Alex F. Osborn and his employees, who coined the term based on the image of using "the brain to storm a problem". First use appears c. 1945. In the sense of "seizure, convulsion, brain activity", from the unrelated idea that it resembles a storm in the brain. First use appears c. 1861.