brainstormingn.
/ˈbreɪnstɔːmɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈbreɪnˌstɔrmɪŋ/ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > manner of action > effort or exertion > [noun]
hightOE
workOE
business1340
afforcinga1398
enforce1487
effort1490
contention1583
heave and shove1600
luctation1651
struggle1706
pingle1728
exertion1777
bother1823
brainstorming1839
beef1851
go-go-go1934
1839 H. Mann Jrnl. 25 Dec. in G. A. Hubbell Horace Mann (1910) v. 92 To-day the Board of Education has met... In the evening I am engaged to go to Waltham, which is too severe. To deliver a lecture after all this brain-storming; how can I do it?
2. The action or process of making a concerted attempt to solve a problem, usually by a group discussion of spontaneously arising ideas. Also (U.S., sometimes depreciative): the intellectual activity of expert advisers or planners.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > thought > [noun] > thinking over > brain-storming
brainstorming1907
brainstorm1925
1907 Trans. Forty-Fourth Session Homoeopathic Med. Soc. Pennsylvania 12 If there has been anything said that should not have been said, or anything left unsaid that should have been said, I feel I can trust to the vivid brainstorming of the doctors who will correct the proofs.
1918 Factory Apr. 625/3 Getting Men to Give Up Their Ideas...The most natural thing to expect..is a flood of suggestions from the successful workman's fellow workers. Every brain in the plant will be working overtime in quest of high-award ideas...From the collective brain-storming, worthy suggestions are bound to result.
1934 Harper's Mag. Feb. 317/2 We have seen a federal administration that had issued feed and seed loans to grow that cotton ripping it out in the name of ‘Relief!’ The cabin walls of the Southern serfs are sound-proof against professorial brainstorming, and against executive radio reasoning which attempts to explain its economic ambidexterity.
1938 Evening Independent (Massillon, Ohio) 3 May 7/1 Rep. Mark Wilcox..has opposed several White House recommendations. Wilcox as a campaigner criticized the ‘brainstorming of brain trusters’.
1942 A. F. Osborn How to think Up iv. 29 Brain-storming starts about seven-thirty and ends at nine.
1957 Britannica Bk. of Year 512/1 Brainstorming, the pooling of ideas towards the solution of a special problem.
1989 R. C. Preziosi Icebreakers 12/1 You can use brainstorming to break the ice and to identify problems the group may have with a topic.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 30 Apr. h4/1 ‘Right-brain meetings’—conferences that use comfortable, colorful furnishings and accessories..to help drum up better brainstorming—may be a trend.
Compounds
In sense 2, as brainstorming session, etc.
ΚΠ
1938 Morning Herald (Uniontown, Pennsylvania) 10 Feb. 6/2 They are not looking for some paternalistic brainstorming reclamation outfit to re-locate them.
1948 A. F. Osborn Your Creative Power xxxiii. 265 At any brainstorming table the villainess is a gal named Prudence.
1953 A. F. Osborn Appl. Imagination xxvi. 297 A leader..must always insist that the ideas produced be judged—not during the brainstorming session—but afterward.
1990 Pract. Eng. Teaching Dec. 43/3 You can put the name of the festival/holiday on the board and start with a brainstorming activity, asking the students to tell you all the words and phrases they can think of in connection with this word.
2005 J. G. Hardy Core Value Proposition 18 (heading) Brainstorming sessions generate lots of good ideas.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1839