rot one's brain
Meaning: To dull one's mind through mindless activity.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Put the phone down before those videos rot your brain.”
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Thoreau wrote of "brain-rot" in Walden (1854). The warning that television, and later screens, would rot children's brains became common in the second half of the 20th century.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: griller les neurones — literally: to burn out the neurons
More idioms — Body & Senses
- put someone back on their feet — To help someone recover, financially, physically or emotionally.
- Aunt Flo is visiting — A euphemism for having one's menstrual period.
- laugh one's head off — To laugh very loudly and for a long time.
- in one's birthday suit — Completely naked.
- go under the knife — To have a surgical operation.
- only have eyes for — To be interested in or attracted to one person only.
More English idioms
- go down fighting — To keep struggling until the very end, even when defeat is certain.
- none of your beeswax — A playful way of saying "none of your business."
- that's all she wrote — That is the end of it; there is nothing more.
- the butt of the joke — The person everyone laughs at or makes fun of.
- roll in the hay — To have casual sex.
- thick as a brick — Very stupid.