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brain drain

brain drain noun: the migration of educated or talented people from less economically advanced areas to more economically advanced areas, especially to large cities or more developed nations.

Noun

brain drain (plural brain drains)

  1. (idiomatic) The migration of educated or talented people from less economically advanced areas to more economically advanced areas, especially to large cities or more developed nations.
    • Fortunately, the often-discussed problem of "the brain drain" is not as serious in agriculture as in most other fields, particularly the "hard sciences."1955, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Proceedings, Issues 6-12, page 60
    • Former HS2 Ltd chairman Sir David Higgins provided a timely reminder of why Britain needs HS2 in a letter to The Times on September 25, in which he asked: "Why are so few FTSE 100 companies based outside the South East? Why is there such a brain drain of graduates from the North? Why do northern...2023 October 4, Philip Haigh, “HS2's rising costs: government only has itself to blame”, in RAIL, number 993, page 53
    Antonyms:
    brain gain
  2. (informal) A Jackson-Pratt 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.

brain drain meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

brain drain in Hindi

emigration of educated people
प्रतिभा पलायन pratibhā palāyan

brain drain in Tamil

கருத்தை வறளச் செய், கருத்தைத் திசை திருப்பு

brain drain in Urdu

emigration of educated people
دِماغی ہِجْرَت dimāġī hijrat, دِماغی نَقْل مَکانی dimāġī naql makānī

brain drain in Bengali

emigration of educated people
মেধা পাচার medha pacar
More languagesFewer languages
brain drain in Kannada
ಪ್ರತಿಭಾ ಪಲಾಯನ pratibhā palāyana
brain drain in Arabic
هِجْرَةُ الأَدْمِغَة hijratu l-ʔadmiḡa, هِجْرَةُ العُقُول hijratu l-ʕuqūl
brain drain in Thai
สมองไหล sà-mɔ̌ɔng-lǎi
brain drain in Vietnamese
chảy máu chất xám

Antonyms of brain drain

Forms of brain drain

Noun
pluralbrain drains
Verb
third-person singular presentbrain drains
present participlebrain draining
past participlebrain drained
pastbrain drained
alternative formbrain-drain

Origin of brain drain

Coined by spokesmen for the Royal Society of London in the early 1950s to describe the outflow of scientists and technologists to the United States and Canada.

Words formed from brain drain

Questions about brain drain

What does brain drain mean?
Brain drain means the migration of educated or talented people from less economically advanced areas to more economically advanced areas, especially to large cities or more developed nations.
What is brain drain in Hindi?
Brain drain in Hindi is प्रतिभा पलायन (pratibhā palāyan). See Brain drain meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is brain drain?
Brain drain can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of brain drain?
The plural of brain drain is brain drains.

Words near brain drain in the dictionary

  1. brain days
  2. brain dead
  3. brain death
  4. brain doctor
  5. brain doctors
  6. brain drain
  7. brain drained
  8. brain draining
  9. brain drains
  10. brain dump
  11. brain dumps

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brain drain (page history and authors); brain drain (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-brain drain.wav.

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