brain trust
- noun
- /breɪn trʌst/
- Literature
- Our Easter National brain trust then got together to decide the national winners for those categories.
- economic brain trust
- a new brain trust
My own personal brain trust of smart humans.
- My own personal brain trust of smart humans.
- Now, now, despite what the old brain trust on cable news claim, this is a very simple story.
- JFK was surrounded by his Harvard brain trust and he had immense disdain for LBJ's Texas Hill Country vibe.
- Because that's just expanding your brain trust to a wider net of people and they might come up with ideas that you hadn't thought of.
Examples
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We thank them both for their years of service and sage contributions to the CAUCE brain trust.
Blog text (28) -
During the crisis, the company's brain trust met to devise a plan to overcome the challenges ahead.
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Someone sent their brain trust down to meet you.
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Well, now that the entire brain trust is present, we can get down to the business at hand...
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Line up our brain trust to dream ahead on this.
Academic text (2010) -
My own personal brain trust of smart humans.
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Now, now, despite what the old brain trust on cable news claim, this is a very simple story.
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The GOP brain trust turned out to be the mirror image of the Democratic Party.
Blog text (29) -
As for the mullahs' treatment of their own people, the president and his brain trust are tough-minded in the extreme ...
Blog text (6) -
FDR dispatched members of his brain trust to Rome to study Italian fascism with a view to importing some of it here.
Synonyms
A group of experts who study public problems and give advice to governments and others
Close advisers who help a leader but are not official ministers
How Official
Surface Forms
Morphology
The component 'brain' evokes intelligence and 'trust' evokes reliance, so a learner who knows both words can infer a meaning along the lines of 'trusted intelligent people' or a trusted group. However, the specific conventionalized sense 'a group of expert advisors' depends on an English idiomatic pairing (and on interpreting 'trust' as a group one relies on), which is not fully predictable for a B1 learner without exposure.
Etymology
Brain trust comes from the image of a leader gathering a small group of brains they trust to think about problems. So it means 'a group of expert advisers'.