crackbrained

English

Alternative forms

• crack-brained, crack brained

Etymology

From crack +‎ brained. The word is centuries old, and the original imagery is of a brain that is cracked (broken), but the advent of crack cocaine produced a new surface analysis whereby the word now also suggests a crack(rock)-addled brain. But even with that difference in referents, cognation is involved regardless.

Adjective

crackbrained (comparative more crackbrained, superlative most crackbrained)

1. Idiotic.

   Synonyms: birdbrained; see also Thesaurus:stupid

   • 1713–1714 (date written), Martinus Scriblerus [pseudonym; Alexander Pope et al.], “Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus”, in The Works of Alexander Pope Esq. […], volume VI, London: […] J[ohn] and P[aul] Knapton […], published 1751, →OCLC, chapter XII (How Martinus Endeavoured to Find Out the Seat of the Soul, and of His Correspondence with the Free-thinkers), page 151:

     In order to ſet ſo hopeful a Genius right in this matter, vve have ſent you an anſvver to the ill-grounded Sophiſms of thoſe crack brain'd fellovvs, and likevviſe an eaſy mechanical explication of Perception or Thinking.

   • 1827, Thomas Carlyle, “Jean Paul Friedrich Richter”, in R[alph] W[aldo] E[merson], editor, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, published 1838, →OCLC, pages 7–8:

     By degrees, Jean Paul began to be considered not a strange, crackbrained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon, but a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     Could it be, after all, that the whole story was true, and the writing on the sherd was not a forgery, or the invention of some crack-brained, long-forgotten individual?

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:

     He shook his head; the milk pail was still at his feet. «You always been a crackbrained sonofabitch anyhow.»

   • 1988 February 5, Lawrence Bommer, “The Fan Club”, in Chicago Reader‎:

     Ralph is a downtrodden, debt-ridden mailman who lives on a diet of Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and The People's Court; dreams of sudden quiz-show success; and (like his namesake, Kramden) keeps hatching crackbrained get-rich schemes (his latest is a battery-operated jump rope).

Derived terms

• crackbrainedness

Related terms

• crackhead

Translations

idiotic

Bulgarian: слабоумен (bg) (slaboumen), побъркан (bg) (pobǎrkan)

See also

• numbskull
• numskull

References

• “crackbrained, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.