rack one's brain
verbEtymology
Combination of rack (“medieval torture method”), and brain, thus meaning “to cause the mind extreme discomfort”. Variants include rack one's wit (1583) and rack one's memory, as well as cudgel one's brain / cudgel one's brains.
Definitions
To struggle to think of or remember something.
- I have been racking my brain all day trying to think of a birthday present for her.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for rack one's brain. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA