brain suckern.
/ˈbreɪn ˌsʌkə/, U.S. /ˈbreɪn ˌsəkər/ 1. A person who takes credit for or benefits undeservedly from the intellectual labour of others; a plagiarist, a parasite.
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the mind > possession > taking > stealing or theft > thief > plagiarist > [noun]
plagiary1602
pirate1668
plagiarist1674
brain sucker1781
arch-pirate1828
plagiarizer1839
plagiator1889
cribber1892
1781 D. Turner Short Hist. Westm. Forum II. 71 Ask those brain-suckers, the Booksellers.
1810 W. Scott Let. in S. Smiles Publisher & Friends (1891) I. viii. 190 Cromek is a perfect brain-sucker, living upon the labours of others.
1884 Penny Illustr. Paper 20 Dec. 410/1 ‘Stage Pirates’—i.e., the brain-suckers who have the vampire-like habit of turning novels into plays without the authority of the authors.
1922 San Francisco Chron. 13 Aug. 2 e/1 The lie, springing from jealous minds, that Edison is ‘a brain-sucker’, i.e., that he sucks the brains of other men and gets the credit of the result.
1995 Australian (Nexis) 16 May People who argue they should be able to get it all for free are parasites and brain-suckers with no real respect for the work or artists they claim to love.
2. A person who or thing which feeds on brain matter; (hence) something regarded as harmful to the intellect.
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1907 P. Fountain Rambles Austral. Naturalist Index 338 Native cat,..a blood and brain sucker.
1948 T. F. McIlwraith Bella Coola Indians II. v. 486 The brain sucker... She inserted her mouth into its ear, sucked out its brains, and thus killed the little one.
1985 Los Angeles Times 4 Nov. i. 13/3 There is nothing to do in segregated confinement but stare at the brain sucker [television] and listen to the planes fly overhead.
2002 Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) (Nexis) 17 Sept. 1 d The media, especially television, is a great brain sucker.
2003 Daily News (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (Nexis) 9 Oct. h14 A small group of humans in the Arctic wreak more havoc on each other out of fear than the brain sucker inside some of them could possibly hope to do on its own.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1781