beat one's brains out

Make a great mental effort to understand, solve, or remember something, as in Joe's beating his brains out to finish this puzzle. Christopher Marlowe used this hyperbolic idiom in The Massacre of Paris (1593): "Guise beats his brains to catch us in his trap." Also see rack one's brains.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Filip	FEE-lip (Dutch), FEE-leep (Polish, Finnish)	Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Polish, Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, Mac
Alexius	-	Ancient Greek (Latinized)
Ishild	-	Ancient Germanic (Hypothetical)
Chaggit	-	Biblical Hebrew
Sanford	['sænfəd]
Chausiku	-	Eastern African, Swahili