brain-dead

See also: braindead and brain dead

English

From brain +‎ dead.

brain-dead (comparative more brain-dead, superlative most brain-dead)

(medicine, not comparable) Having an irreversible loss of brain function and cessation of brain activity.
- 2010 February 22, Michael S. Schmidt; Karen Zraick, “Hit and Run in Brooklyn Leaves One Brain-Dead”, in The New York Times‎, ISSN 0362-4331:
  An employee of the mayor's office was declared brain-dead on Sunday morning after she and another woman were struck by a hit-and-run driver while crossing Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, the authorities said.
(colloquial) Having no useful thoughts; stupid; ditzy.
- 2003 May 13, Mark Baard, quoting Marvin Minsky, “AI Founder Blasts Modern Research”, in Wired‎, ISSN 1059-1028:
  "AI has been brain-dead since the 1970s," said AI guru Marvin Minsky in a recent speech at Boston University. Minsky co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1959 with John McCarthy.

Brain-dead is occasionally used to describe a person in a coma. This may cause confusion because in formal medical use brain-dead means dead rather than comatose.

in medicine: having irreversible cessation of brain activity

colloquially: having no useful thoughts