forebrain
noun
forebrain is a noun meaning “The anterior part of the brain, including the cerebrum, thalamus, and hypothalamus” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-E-B-R-A-I-N and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 8 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of forebrain is forebrains.
What does forebrain mean?
noun
- 1
The anterior part of the brain, including the cerebrum, thalamus, and hypothalamus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce forebrain?
Forebrain has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-forebrain.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of forebrain
- forebrains plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is forebrain?
Forebrain appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 82,325th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Forebrain in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense part of the brain:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | prosencéphale, cerveau antérieur |
| German | Vorderhirn |
| Portuguese | prosencéfalo |
| Spanish | prosencéfalo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does forebrain come from?
From fore- + brain.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).