Other forms: brainstorming, brainstormed, brainstorms
To brainstorm is to throw out ideas quickly as a group, without judging any of them, until something usable appears. The rule that makes it work is that criticism is postponed — bad ideas are allowed, because stopping to judge stops the flow.
It is a workplace word, and the noun is both the session and the burst of ideas: let's have a brainstorm, a brainstorming session. There is a British sense that means the exact opposite and is worth knowing: a brainstorm can mean a moment of complete mental confusion — I had a brainstorm and locked myself out — and that use is older than the meeting one. Some organisations now say thought shower or idea shower instead, out of concern about the original medical sense.
1verbbrainstormTo produce ideas quickly as a group, without judging them yet.
“We brainstormed names for an hour and used none of them.”
2nounsessionA session for producing ideas that way.
“There is a brainstorm on Tuesday morning.”
3nounuseIn British use, a sudden moment of mental confusion.
“I had a complete brainstorm and called her by the wrong name.”
brainstorm is a way of generating ideas.
From brain + storm. 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Work & Careers, Thinking & Memory