"pick someone's brain" meaning in English

See pick someone's brain in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-pick someone's brain.ogg [Australia] Forms: picks someone's brain [present, singular, third-person], picking someone's brain [participle, present], picked someone's brain [participle, past], picked someone's brain [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} pick someone's brain (third-person singular simple present picks someone's brain, present participle picking someone's brain, simple past and past participle picked someone's brain)
  1. (idiomatic) To seek information from someone knowledgeable; to ask questions of someone. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: compare notes

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for pick someone's brain meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "picks someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "picking someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "picked someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "picked someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pick someone's brain (third-person singular simple present picks someone's brain, present participle picking someone's brain, simple past and past participle picked someone's brain)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English light verb constructions",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "After I spent a couple of hours picking his brain, his scheme started to make sense."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To seek information from someone knowledgeable; to ask questions of someone."
      ],
      "id": "en-pick_someone's_brain-en-verb-fQJD9ryZ",
      "links": [
        [
          "seek",
          "seek"
        ],
        [
          "information",
          "information"
        ],
        [
          "knowledgeable",
          "knowledgeable"
        ],
        [
          "question",
          "question"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To seek information from someone knowledgeable; to ask questions of someone."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "compare notes"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pick someone's brain.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e4/En-au-pick_someone%27s_brain.ogg/En-au-pick_someone%27s_brain.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/En-au-pick_someone%27s_brain.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pick someone's brain"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "picks someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "picking someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "picked someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "picked someone's brain",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pick someone's brain (third-person singular simple present picks someone's brain, present participle picking someone's brain, simple past and past participle picked someone's brain)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "compare notes"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English light verb constructions",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "After I spent a couple of hours picking his brain, his scheme started to make sense."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To seek information from someone knowledgeable; to ask questions of someone."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "seek",
          "seek"
        ],
        [
          "information",
          "information"
        ],
        [
          "knowledgeable",
          "knowledgeable"
        ],
        [
          "question",
          "question"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To seek information from someone knowledgeable; to ask questions of someone."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pick someone's brain.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e4/En-au-pick_someone%27s_brain.ogg/En-au-pick_someone%27s_brain.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/En-au-pick_someone%27s_brain.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pick someone's brain"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.