brain fart

See also: brainfart

English

Alternative forms

• brainfart, brain-fart

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

brain fart (plural brain farts)

1. (figuratively, slang, mildly vulgar) Something ill-considered and said or done impulsively.
   • 2011 July 8, Grace Dent, The Guardian:

     This is love in the social media age. Candlelight dinner, fine wine, degustation, a lover's face scrunched over a phone screen live-tweeting brainfarts about the relationship to largely uninterested skim-readers.

2. (figuratively, slang, mildly vulgar) An instance of absent-mindedness or forgetfulness.

   Sorry for the brain fart, but what exactly did you say again?

   • 2001, Neil Gaiman, American Gods, William Morrow, →ISBN, page 276:

     Shadow turned off the heaters, packed some clothes into an overnight bag, then turned back to Wednesday and said, ‘Look, I feel kind of stupid. I know you just told me who we're going to see, but I dunno. I just had a brain-fart or something. It’s gone. Who is it again?’

Coordinate terms

• brain cramp
• draw a blank
• thinko

Translations

something ill-considered

• Esperanto: memortruo
• Finnish: aivopieru (fi) (vulgar)
• French: trou de mémoire (fr) m
• Greek: εγκεφαλοκλάνι n (egkefalokláni)
• Italian: cazzata (it) f
• Russian: мозгово́й глюк m (mozgovój gljuk), перл (ru) m (perl), вы́сер (ru) m (výser) (vulgar)
• Swedish: hjärnsläpp (sv) n

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Spanish: ^{(please verify)} laguna (es) f

Further reading

• Eric Partridge (2005) “brain fart”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volumes 1 (A–I), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 255.
• Jonathon Green (2024) “brain fart n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang