brainstorming
After 30 minutes of brainstorming we came up with the answer.
We brainstorm about different dishes we could serve.
Conference delegates get into groups to brainstorm marketing concepts.
After brainstorming with my advisor, we came up with a method.
It can be good to brainstorm a project over a drink.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Suggestions & proposals
about
bounce something off someone
can't
co-sponsor
co-sponsorship
drop
imply
make noisesidiom
maybe
move
mover
nomination
on the tableidiom
proposition
put ideas into someone's headidiom
put someone to somethingidiom
put something in
put something up
resubmission
table
brainstorm
noun[ C ]
 informaluk /ˈbreɪn.stɔːm/ us /ˈbreɪn.stɔːrm/
mainly US(UK usuallybrainwave)
a sudden clever idea: （突发的）奇想;灵感;妙计
have a brainstorm The toy's inventor was watching his children play one day when he had a brainstorm.这个玩具的发明者有一天在看他的孩子们玩的时候突然有了灵感。
This was a brainstorm I came up with when I was driving.
The concept was the brainstorm of a worker at the plant.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

an idea
ideaI've got an idea - why don't we ask John for help?
planThe plan is to hire a car when we get there.
thoughtHave you had any thoughts on presents for your mother?
suggestionHave you got any suggestions for improvements?
brainwaveUKI wasn't sure what to do and then I had brainwave - I could ask Anna for help.
brainstormUSShe was stuck until she had a brainstorm and the solution came to her.
UK
a sudden state of being unable to think clearly: 突然神志不清，一时糊涂
have a brainstorm I must have had a brainstorm - I went shopping and forgot to take any money.我当时一定是傻了——我出去买东西却忘了带钱。
It was a stupid brainstorm and it cost his team the victory.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Ideas, concepts and theories
abstract
abstraction
accepted wisdom
afterthought
anthropocentrism
Darwinism
Darwinist
determinist
Dianetics
meat
motif
musings
natalism
non-dogmatic
reification
sacred cow
social Darwinism
straw man
supersensible
the domino theory

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Confusion, confusing and feeling confused

brainstorm | American Dictionary

brainstorm
verb[ I/T ]
us/ˈbreɪnˌstɔrm/
to suggest a lot of ideas for a future activity very quickly before considering some of them more carefully:
[ I ]They brainstormed and mapped plans for dealing with problems like affordable housing and the budget shortfall.

brainstorming

noun[ U ]us/ˈbreɪnˌstɔr·mɪŋ/
We need to do some brainstorming before we get down to detailed planning.
brainstorm
noun[ C ]
 infmlus/ˈbreɪnˌstɔrm/
a sudden, new idea that you are enthusiastic about:
They got this brainstorm that they could make a living by buying and selling antiques.

brainstorm | Business English

brainstorm
verb[ I or T ]
uk /ˈbreɪnstɔːm/us
MEETINGS
to meet in a group to suggest a lot of new ideas very quickly, with the intention of considering them more carefully later:
Engineers from all over the company met every couple of weeks to brainstorm.
Remember all ideas are welcomed - so start brainstorming!
A team will brainstorm a job description for the new leadership post.
brainstorm
noun[ C ]
uk /ˈbreɪnstɔːm/us
a new, original idea or set of ideas:
They have started to turn their brainstorm into a real product.

Examples of brainstorm

brainstorm
The automatic creation of function structures provides the user with a brainstorming tool to develop new ways to solve the basic functions of a design.
In the preparation phase, learners are shown visuals of people in informal settings and brainstorm on what they might be saying.
With the exception of patent searches, other more effective techniques were found to be guided brainstorming methods.
However, when he started reading his programmatic paper, he had a brainstorm, realizing that his reasoning lacked logic.
Mixing and sharing of roles in the music sessions also lead to brainstorming administrative problems with each other.
We began by brainstorming to identify as many potentially important concepts as possible.
This article describes an exploratory study that investigated the effects of training in brainstorming strategy on learners' performance and perceptions about writing.
The article describes the instruction that was provided and the findings of the effects of brainstorming instruction.
The emergency situation stimulated brainstorm activity on the part of agricultural chemists, who organized the production of fertilizers and searched for non-traditional substitutes.
We began the process by walking around the area, doing mappings, workshops, brainstorms and so on.
The data demonstrated that explicit instruction of brainstorming strategy had a measurable influence on writing performance.
The aim was to produce a health-status questionnaire and it was developed on the basis of a literature review of health-status measurement, brainstorming sessions and consultation with experts.
In addition, an open discussion meeting was held with supervisors and educators to look at past performance and to brainstorm possible strategic directions for the model.
Teaching focuses on directing students to brainstorm how they can exploit convention to achieve particular effects and facilitate their planning of the structure of their pieces.
After a function structure is created, a good design exercise is to independently brainstorm solutions for each function while temporarily suspending the limitations or constraints between functions.
See all examples of brainstorm
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.