Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

brain freeze

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.05 in modern English

Syllables: brain freeze
IPA

25

Scrabble Score

11

Letters

1

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A pain in the head from eating or drinking something cold; a cold-stimulus headache.

Informal; Uncountable

noun

Failure to remember something, with the sense that recall is imminent.

Uncountable

Example Sentences

"Still, why do some people get brain freezes while others can chug a milkshake with impunity? […] For one, the research indicates brain freeze seems to run in families – if your parents have ice cream headaches, you're likely to as well."
"I apologize for giving you another name a moment ago, that was a brain freeze on my part."
"I call it a brain freeze at this age, but whenever you have some kind of a problem remembering something, you think, oh, you know, you automatically think about Alzheimer’s."
"Call it a brain freeze, another 'Aleppo moment,' or a mere campaign stumble, but Gary Johnson has stumbled again in his quixotic presidential campaign."

Usage

Inflected Forms

brain freezes (plural)

Synonyms

ice cream headache tip of the tongue presque vu

Questions

What does brain freeze mean?: A pain in the head from eating or drinking something cold; a cold-stimulus headache.

How to pronounce brain freeze

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “brain freeze”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “brain freeze”.
Repeat and practice — Say “brain freeze” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.