Word.ws English Dictionary

brain-drain

brain-drain is the alternative form of brain drain.

Meaning of brain drain

Verb

brain drain (third-person singular simple present brain drains, present participle brain draining, simple past and past participle brain drained)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive, uncommon) Of a nation or society, to be deprived of educated or talented people, who in turn migrate to larger cities or more developed nations.
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive, uncommon) To become mentally or psychologically fatigued or exhausted.

See all 4 meanings of brain drain

Forms of brain-drain

third-person singular presentbrain-drains
present participlebrain-draining
past participlebrain-drained
pastbrain-drained

Questions about brain-drain

What is brain-drain the alternative form of?
Brain-drain is the alternative form of brain drain.

Words near brain-drain in the dictionary

  1. brain-cramp
  2. brain-cramps
  3. brain-damaged
  4. brain-dead
  5. brain-deads
  6. brain-drain
  7. brain-drained
  8. brain-draining
  9. brain-drains
  10. brain-dressed
  11. brain-fag

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brain-drain (page history and authors); brain drain (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “brain-drain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brain-drain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.