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The term brain comes from the old English braegen, possibly from Greek brekhmos (forehead).

It is the English derivitive of an old Germanic word for "grey mush in the head" as opposed to grey mush in the bones (what we now call marrow). Ancient peoples did not know the function of the brain, and in fact many languages lumped marrow and brains together with single word. As our knowledge about the function of the brain grew, we kept the language of our ancestors who simply viewed the brain as waste/refuse.

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14y ago

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