🤪 Foolish or wild 🤪 A crazy person

crackbrain

9.9

Very foolish and not likely to work, often about plans or ideas

adjective

Offensive

: descabellado

The committee rejected his crackbrain scheme to build a bridge across the lake.

Examples

Everyone thought her crackbrain idea would never succeed, but she proved them wrong.
He is known for making crackbrain suggestions during meetings that surprise his colleagues.
What a crackbrain idea!
That's a crackbrain plan!
The committee rejected his crackbrain scheme to build a bridge across the lake.
Everyone thought her crackbrain idea would never succeed, but she proved them wrong.
He is known for making crackbrain suggestions during meetings that surprise his colleagues.

Synonyms

crackbrained

vscrackbrain

Offensive

1 9.9

Very foolish and not sensible or responsible

is the noun form referring to that same craziness

lamebrained

vscrackbrain

Offensive

1 8.4

Very silly and not showing good sense

focuses more on wild impracticality and craziness than plain silliness

crackers

vscrackbrain

8.8

Acting very silly and not thinking in a sensible way

is more formal and applies to ideas or people being wildly impractical

cracked

vscrackbrain

Offensive

7.4

Someone who acts a little crazy

labels foolish or wildly impractical ideas rather than mental illness

Antonyms

practical

507 2.6

About how something works in real life rather than in ideas

sensible

201 2.7

Showing good judgment and making practical choices

How Crazy

insane

Slur

524 4.0

crazy

Slur

40 7.2

crackbrain

Offensive

9.9

foolish

505 1.3

silly

976 1.0

Surface Forms

crackbrain positive

Morphology

crackbrain = crack + brain (transparent) = crack + brain

Meaning is directly suggested by 'crack' + 'brain' (a 'cracked' brain = crazy), so learners can infer 'foolish/crazy'.

Etymology

Crackbrain combines crack ('crazy' or 'broken') and brain ('mind'). Think of a 'cracked' mind that makes wild, impractical ideas, so crackbrain describes a foolish or wildly impractical plan.