1861 S. B. Hemyng Dark Cloud with Silver Lining v. 67 Then a fierce brain-storm swept over her. There was a gloom on her brow, clothing the dimly visible gnomes of the future in dark, shapeless shadows.

1871 A. J. Davis Temple Contents 469 Brain storms and Sun storms.

1884 Lancet 16 Aug. 273/1 After these brain storms he becomes quiet and tractable.

1908 Westm. Gaz. 8 Aug. 4/3 In the closing years of his active life, Ruskin had suffered from recurrent brain-storms.

1937 Sci. News Let. 12 June 371/2 The epilepsy patterns suggested the approach or presence of a veritable brain storm.

1948 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 10 Jan. 71/2 Whoever drafted these Sections..must have been suffering from a brain storm or similar kind of derangement.

1993 Teleworker Nov.–Dec. 32/3 A successful London businessman who..had a brainstorm when he signed a cost-per-copy contract that committed his firm to shelling out £19,000.

2002 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 28 Feb. 18/2 In 1893, shortly after his marriage, Nachum suffered a brainstorm of some kind on a train journey to Hamburg.

1925 College Humor Feb. 43/2 He had a brainstorm.

1932 Amer. Speech 7 329 Brain storm, a sudden and usually fortunate thought.

1945 School & College Placement May 7 (caption) Can you develop a talent for ideas?.. One of the methods at BBDO [= Batten, Barten, Durstine, & Osborn] is by sessions called ‘brainstorms’ where there is one firm rule—there is no such thing as a bad idea—and one thought sparks another.

1948 A. F. Osborn Your Creative Power xxxiii. 265 It was in 1939 when I first organized such group-thinking in our company. The early participants dubbed our efforts ‘Brainstorm Sessions’... Hundreds of such brainstorm sessions have been held in our 11 offices.

1953 Manch. Guardian Weekly 12 Feb. 3 They carry behind their every brain~storm the authority of the White House.

1983 J. Macy Despair & Personal Power i. 7 The participants held a brainstorm. The subject: ‘Why in our daily lives do we avoid expressing these deep concerns’?

2005 M. Butje Product Marketing for Technol. Companies iii. 26 An attractiveness and feasibility study is best done during a brainstorm session.

1945 School & College Placement May 7 (caption) Can you develop a talent for ideas?.. One of the methods at BBDO is by sessions called ‘brainstorms’ where there is one firm rule—there is no such thing as a bad idea—and one thought sparks another. Here a group of BBDO [= Batten, Barten, Durstine, & Osborn]writers are ‘brainstorming’ on a copy problem.

1947 I. Asimov Little Lost Robot in Astounding Sci. Fiction Mar. 112/2 When our missing robot failed of location anywhere..we brainstormed ourselves into counting the robots left.

1955 N.Y. Times 6 Nov. F3/5 They are being taught..how to brainstorm their way to conclusions concerning subjects ranging from world affairs to specific engineering puzzles.

1977 S. M. Campbell Expanding your Teaching Potential (1983) 224 Topics for the workshop were chosen by consensus from lists brainstormed and lobbied for by the undergraduates and the seminar members. Once a topic was selected, it too was brainstormed.

1990 S. Bingham & A. Savory Holistic Resource Managem. Workbk. i. 28/1 If stuck for ideas, don't hesitate to gather some friends to brainstorm your way out.

2007 Junior Educ. June 37/2 As a class, brainstorm all the different ‘alien’ films and TV programmes that your pupils have seen or heard of.