brain drain

noun
a loss of trained professional personnel to another company, nation, etc., that offers greater opportunity.
Also, brain-drain.


Origin:
1960–65

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
brain drain
 
n
informal the emigration of scientists, technologists, academics, etc, for better pay, equipment, or conditions

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Brain drain is always a great word to know.
So is quincunx. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
Slang Dictionary

brain-drain definition


  1. n.
    the movement of intellectuals from one country to another where the pay and job opportunities are better. : Where there is a good education system, there will always be a brain-drain.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

brain drain

The departure of educated or talented persons for better pay or jobs elsewhere, as in The repression of free speech in Germany triggered a brain drain to Britain and America. The term originated about 1960, when many British scientists and intellectuals emigrated to the United States for a better working climate.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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