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rack one's brain
Idioms and Phrases
Also, cudgel one's brains . Strain to remember or find a solution, as in I've been racking my brain trying to recall where we put the key , or He's been cudgeling his brains all day over this problem . The first term, first recorded in 1583 as rack one's wit , alludes to the rack that is an instrument of torture, on which the victim's body was stretched until the joints were broken. The variant, from the same period, uses cudgel in the sense of “beat with a cudgel” (a short thick stick). Shakespeare used it in Hamlet (5:1): “Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not bend his pace with beating.” Also see beat one's brains out .Example Sentences
"It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— I'm sure my poor head aches again, I've scratched it so and all in vain."
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— I'm sure my poor head aches again,40 I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— I'm sure my poor head aches again I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— 40I'm sure my poor head aches again, I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
One does all one can to rack one's brain," she smiled, "and here you combine to do your utmost to confuse me!
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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