Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definitions: Harebrained |
HarebrainedAdjective1. Very foolish; "harebrained ideas"; "took insane risks behind the wheel"; "a completely mad scheme to build a bridge between two mountains". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "harebrained" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1980. (references) |
Synonyms: HarebrainedSynonyms: insane (adj), mad (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Rashness | Hot-blooded, hotheaded, hotbrained; headlong, headstrong; breakneck; foolhardy; harebrained; precipitate, impulsive. overconfident, overweening; venturesome, venturous; adventurous, Quixotic, fire eating, cavalier; janty, jaunty, free and easy. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Harebrained |
| English words defined with "harebrained": Hairbrained. (references) |
| Play | Caption |
| Cackle; chortle; chuckle; guffaw; hee-haw; snicker; snigger; tehee; titter; twitter; absurd; asinine; brainless; cockamamie; crazy; crazy; daffy; daft; dingy; dippy; doltish; dotty; fantastic; fatuous; feebleminded; half-baked; half-witted; harebrained; i. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Harebrained" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 88.89% of the time. "Harebrained" is used about 9 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 88.89% | 8 | 124,375 |
| Lexical Verb (past tense) | 11.11% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 9 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Language | Translations for "harebrained"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | mendjelehtë (airily, facile, featherbrain, featherbrained, featherheaded, frivolous, giddy, hoity toity, light minded, light-headed, lightsome, unreflecting, unthinking, vain), mendjefyell (rattle-brain, rattle-pate), karafil (carnation, clove, sweet william). (various references) | |
Arabic | طائش (bad, careless, flighty, foolhardy, frivolous, giddy, hasty, heedless, impetuous, imprudent, inadvertent, inconsiderate, indiscreet, injudicious, libertine, light, light minded, light-headed, lunatic, mad, madcap, muddle-headed, popinjay, random, rash, rattle-brained, reckless, scatter-brain, scatter-brained, scatty, stray, stunned, thoughtless, unadvised, unwise), خفيف العقل, أرعن (light hearted, mad, ranter). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | вятърничав (flighty, flyaway, scatter-brained, skittish), лекомислен (airy, airy fairy, dizzy, empty headed, fast, featherbrained, flip, flippant, foolish, frivolous, giddy, harum scarum, idle, inconstant, light, light minded, light-headed, scatter-brained, superficial, trivial, unreflecting, unthinking). (various references) | |
Chinese | '失. (various references) | |
Czech | splašený (rattle-headed), šílený (berserk, crackpot, crazy, demented, frenzied, furious, insane, lunatic, mad, manic, terrible, terrific, tomfool). (various references) | |
Farsi | گیج (Astound, Astray, Dizzy, Giddy, Hazy, Stupid, Wacky), وحشی (Barbaric, Barbarous, Brutal, Ferocious, Gross, Rambunctious, Ruffian, Ruttish, Savage, Truculent, Uncivil, Uncivilized, Undaunted, Ungovernable, Unshaped(En), Wild), سبک مغز (Idiot, Imbecile, Silly), دیوانه (Bedlam, Berserk, Crazy, Cuckoo, Demented, Fanatic, Fey, Gaga, Insane, Loco, Loony, Lunatic, Mad, Madbrained, Madcap, Manic, Natural, Nut, Nutty, Psychotic), بی پروا (Adventurer, Audacious, Confident, Daredevil, Dashing, Headlong, Heady, Heedless, Impetuous, Inconsiderate, Rash, Reckless, Slapdash, Unadvised, Unscrupulous). (various references) | |
French | ??? (hardworking). (various references) | |
German | närrisch (clownish, foolish, mad, madly, scatty, silly). (various references) | |
Hebrew | פוחז (foolhardy, irresponsible, reckless), פזיז (careless, fickle, hasty, headlong, impetuous, impulsive, nimble, precipitous, rash, slapdash, slaphappy). (various references) | |
Hungarian | kelekótya (featherbrained, feather-brained, feather-headed, hare-brained, harum scarum, harum-scarum, scatter-brained). (various references) | |
Italian | scervellato (madcap). (various references) | |
Norwegian | tankeløs. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | arebrainedhay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | desatento (carefree, careless, deaf, distraught, inattentive, inobservant, light minded, listless, mindless, regardless, scatterbrained, unobservant), campainha (bell, blue bell, campane, chimes, handbill, morning gown, set of bells, sounding device, striking mechanism of clock, tinkler). (various references) | |
Russian | глупый (anserine, apish, asinine, barmy, beef-witted, blockish, bovine, brain dead, brainless, cloddish, daft, dense, doddery, drippy, fatuous, fat-witted, featherbrain, featherbrained, feather-brained, foolish, gaga, goofy, idle-headed, inane, inept, mindless, mutton-headed, nitwitted, nonsensical, oafish, sappy, silly, simple-minded, soft-headed, spoony, stupid, thickskulled, thick-skulled, thick-witted, timber-headed, unwise, wooden-headed), ветреный (blowy, breezy, corky, featherbrain, featherbrained, feather-brained, giddy, light-headed, scatterbrained, scatter-brained, windy), опрометчивый (headlong, heady, hot-headed, ill-advised, impetuous, imprudent, incautious, overbold, precipitate, rash, reckless, unwary), неосторожный (incautious, indiscreet, unwary), безрассудный (blind, daft, dare devil, desperate, foolhardy, foolish, hellbent, rash, reckless, swashbuckling, temerarious, unreasonable). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | ćaknut (batty, cracked, crackers, moonstruck, queer, soft, soft-headed, touched, wacky, whacky). (various references) | |
Spanish | Tonto (ass, cabbagehead, calvish, clod-poll, crass, crazed, cretin, dimwit, dink, dispensary, dummy, dunderhead, fool, foolish, greaseproof paper, idiot, idiotic, idleheaded, jenny ass, lemon, loose, nonsensical, numbhead, pinhead, silly, simple minded, soft, soft-headed, soppy, spoony, stupid, unwise, wall eyed, witless), casquivano (bird brained, bird witted, empty headed, feckless, light-headed, rattle-brained, whippersnapper), atolondrado (careless, frivolous, harum scarum, lightheaded, madcap, muddle-headed, reckless, scatterbrained, scatty). (various references) | |
Swedish | tanklös (blithe, brash, harum scarum, heedless, improvident, inattentive, insensible, light, light-headed, scatter-brained, scatty, thoughtless, unguarded, unthinking). (various references) | |
Turkish | kuş beyinli (addle-brain, addle-pate, bird brained, bird witted, birdbrain, dizzy, empty headed, feather brain, feather-brained, nitwit, pinhead, shallow-brained), kafasız (addle-brained, addle-pated, duffer, headless, light in the head, soft, soft in the head, stupid, tomfool, unsophisticated, witless), aptal (bird brained, birdbrain, booby, cretin, cuckoo, daft, Dotty, drag, dumb, dumb bell, dummy, dunce, fathead, fat-head, fat-headed, fatuous, feeble minded, fool, foolish, gaga, goofy, gormless, half wit, half-witted, idiot, idiotic, inane, innocent, lummox, oafish, silly, simp, softhead, softy, stupid, thickheaded, tomfool, twerp, twit). (various references) | |
Ukranian | необачний (hasteful, hasty, headlong, hot-brained, ill-advised, imprudent, overbold, over-hasty, precipitant, slap bang, slapdash), дурний (anserine, asinine, balmy, bat-minded, bovine, cloddish, cracked, daft, dense, fatuous, featherbrained, fool, foolish, gawky, goofy, idle-headed, mindless, mutton-headed, nonsensical, oafish, obtuse, opaque, owlish, pigheaded, sappy, sottish, spoony, stockish, stupid, thoughtless). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Harebrained" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: hairbrained. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "harebrained" (pronounced he"rbrā'nd) |
| 3 | -ā' n d | bloodstained, outgained. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-d-e-e-h-i-n-r-r" | |
-3 letters: barehead, diarrhea, hairband, hardener, harridan, herbaria, hinderer, reharden. | |
-4 letters: abrader, adherer, airhead, aneared, araneid, barnier, beadier, berried, braider, brained, brander, dernier, drainer, errhine, handier, hardier, harried, headier, herbier, herniae, herried, inbreed, inhered, nerdier, randier, readier, reheard, rehired. | |
-5 letters: abider, abrade, adhere, aedine, aeried, aerier, arider, bander, barred, barren, beaned, beanie, bearer, behead, behind, bender, binder, birder, birred, briard, brined, briner, darner, dearer, dearie, denari, denier, dharna, earned, earner, endear, errand, haired, harden, harder, header, hearer, heired, herbed, herder, herein, hernia, hinder, inbred, indaba, inhere, neared, nearer, nereid, radian, raider, rained, reader, reared, rebind, rebred, redear, rediae, reearn, rehear, rehire, reined, render, reread, riband. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-b-d-e-e-h-i-n-r-r" | |
+3 letters: featherbrained. | |
+4 letters: weatherboarding. | |
+5 letters: weatherboardings. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)48 61 72 65 62 72 61 69 6E 65 64 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).... .- .-. . -... .-. .- .. -. . -.. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001000 01100001 01110010 01100101 01100010 01110010 01100001 01101001 01101110 01100101 01100100 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)H a r e b r a i n e d |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0048 0061 0072 0065 0062 0072 0061 0069 006E 0065 0064 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4267847168846775807170 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Sounds | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Translations: Modern 7. Derivations 8. Rhymes | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.