Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1976, popularized in U.S. by the Karen Anne Quinlan case (brain death is from 1968).
Wiktionary
a. 1 (context medicine English) Having an irreversible loss of brain function and cessation of brain activity. 2 (context colloquial English) Having no useful thoughts; stupid; ditzy. alt. 1 (context medicine English) Having an irreversible loss of brain function and cessation of brain activity. 2 (context colloquial English) Having no useful thoughts; stupid; ditzy.
Usage examples of "brain-dead".
You admit to stupid, you cop to thoughtless, you plead brain-dead, you vouchsafe radical DNA damage all the way back to the Mesolithic, including that embarrassing contretemps involving your ancestor Hoockmuh of the Clactonians which resulted in your being minus a lobe or two of brain, and thus you are truly and genuinely contrite about having cut him off.
Vacaville reinforced my belief that the population of Diamond Bar was being transformed by person or persons unknown into a brain-dead congregation of delusionaries, and fearful of joining them, I intensified my focus on escape, exploring the sub-basements, the walls, the turrets, searching for potential threats.
A shower of emboli from a calcified heart valve had been loosed during surgery and Frank Gork, formally Frank Segelman, had been left brain-dead.
With government crippled and industry brain-dead to any conceivable moral appeal, the future of decentered, autonomous cultural networks looks very bright.
Even dead he’s worth more than you two brain-dead fuckwits, so make sure he’s alive when we get to Golse or you’ll be following him to heaven.
You'd read this great resume, the guy would up and give a good interview, and as soon as he le job, he'd turn into a brain-dead lame donkey you n't move with a flaming two-by-four shoved up his Half the time you couldn't lop off the deadwood in : place because they'd sue for one kind of discrim- or another-gender, age, race, whatever.
Everyone is talking to the usual suspects, knocking on nearby doors, filing reports, and all the rest of the brain-dead routine.