Meaning
To question someone in order to extract their knowledge, ideas, or advice, usually because they know more about a topic than you do. Commonly used in polite requests, such as asking a colleague for a short meeting to discuss a problem. The plural form, picking someone's brains, is the usual British rendering. Conversational and neutral to friendly; often frames a request for help as a compliment to the other person's expertise. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The idiom is first recorded in the middle of the nineteenth century: the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms dates it to the mid-1800s and explains it as alluding to picking clean a carcass, while other references give the same mid-19th-century dating with the image of picking meat from bones. It belongs to an older family of 'pick' metaphors in which picking means extracting or stealing something concealed, as in picking a pocket, here applied to a person's stored knowledge rather than their valuables. The exact first user is unknown. Modern internet articles sometimes tie the phrase to Victorian anatomical 'brain picking' in dissection rooms, but that is speculation without documentary support, and the carcass-and-pocket imagery is the better attested reading.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- brain-picking
- pick someone's brains
- pick your brain
- pick your brains
- picked his brains
Usage Examples
- Before you buy the business, pick the current owner's brain about which suppliers are reliable.
- I called my sister, who is a nurse, and picked her brains about the side effects listed on the leaflet.
- Could I pick your brain for ten minutes on how you structured the funding application?