C1idiominformalstudyIELTS-friendly
rack your brains
USUK
to think very hard to remember something or solve a problem
Often in the past or continuous. American English often uses the singular: 'rack your brain'.
In context
I racked my brains, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen her before.
We've been racking our brains for a name for the new café.
More idioms about study
- a steep learning curvea situation where you must learn a lot of new things very quickly
- get the hang ofto learn how to do something, especially after some practice
- get your head aroundto manage to understand something that is complicated or surprising
- hit the booksto start studying hard, especially before an exam
- it's not rocket scienceused to say that something is not difficult to understand or do