How to Use brain-dead in a Sentence

brain-dead

adjective
  • The young boy of prophecy gets trampled into a brain-dead coma.
    — Darren Franich, Vulture, 14 Feb. 2025
  • He was declared brain-dead that day and taken off life support two days later.
    — City News Service, Daily News, 30 Mar. 2026
  • Three days later, he was declared brain-dead and taken off life support.
    — Aya Elamroussi, CNN, 23 Sep. 2023
  • She’s rushed to the nearest hospital, where she is pronounced brain-dead.
    — Brea Baker, Refinery29, 22 May 2025
  • She was declared brain-dead and the cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head.
    — Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 22 July 2025
  • Then, out of nowhere, she gets hit by a van, leaving her comatose and brain-dead in the hospital.
    — Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 11 Apr. 2025
  • Newkirk said her daughter was declared brain-dead and placed on a ventilator.
    — Minyvonne Burke, NBC news, 17 June 2025
  • There are circumstances in which a patient who isn’t brain-dead may still become an organ donor.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN, 28 Oct. 2024
  • The vast majority of organ donations once came from people who were brain-dead.
    — ABC News, 26 Feb. 2026
  • Blood in a brain-dead patient circulated through a pig’s liver that was outside the person’s body.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN Money, 26 Mar. 2025
  • The first transplants were short-term experiments in patients who were brain-dead, so there was no further risk to human health.
    — Amber Dance, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Mar. 2025
  • The Penn team plans to refine the procedure on an additional three brain-dead people.
    — Emily Mullin, WIRED, 18 Jan. 2024
  • Even rarer still are cases in which doctors aim to prolong the pregnancy after a woman is declared brain-dead.
    — CBS News, 15 May 2025
  • Maddie was taken to the hospital, but three days later was declared brain-dead, Grobmeier said.
    — Alexandra Kukulka, Chicago Tribune, 26 June 2023
  • Looked at one way, this is just another example of how brain-dead partisanship is ruining our civic life.
    — Chris Stirewalt, The Hill, 21 Oct. 2025
  • The recluse of 30 years comes out of hibernation and emerges with a new album that fires up more brain-dead devotion and fawning.
    — Randy Myers, The Mercury News, 13 Mar. 2025
  • Angela suffered a seizure and was declared brain-dead on March 15 and later removed from life support.
    — Rebecca Rosenberg, Fox News, 23 Mar. 2023
  • He was reportedly revived at a hospital but was declared brain-dead and removed from life support.
    — Bonny Chu, FOXNews.com, 10 Dec. 2025
  • Thankfully, Mario Kart World isn’t as brain-dead and overly corporate as the above sounds.
    — Ollie Barder, Forbes.com, 8 June 2025
  • Nichols, who was placed on a ventilator upon arrival at the hospital, was also brain-dead at the time of his death, the report shows.
    — C Mandler, CBS News, 4 May 2023
  • These studies lasted days or weeks because of ethical concerns over how long experiments can be run on brain-dead people.
    — Emily Mullin, WIRED, 11 Oct. 2023
  • Alive first reported that a brain-dead pregnant woman was being kept alive by doctors until her fetus can survive outside the womb.
    — Kristal Dixon, Axios, 21 May 2025
  • One woman who crashed while transporting five migrants, leaving two dead, one brain-dead and one paralyzed from the waist down, was sentenced to eight years in prison.
    — Alex Riggins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 May 2025
  • Not for her health or out of any hope of recovery, but to sustain her fetus — a fetus that was only nine weeks along when Smith was declared brain-dead.
    — Jameelah Nasheed, Essence, 21 May 2025
  • Suffice to say, kids were clear which group was which (brilliant/average/brain-dead), and more to the point, by Day 2 of school, the parents were, too.
    — Inga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 Aug. 2025
  • Doctors later told the family that Samuel is brain-dead and remains unresponsive.
    — Christina Coulter, PEOPLE, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Rushed by medics to Jacobi Medical Center, he was pronounced brain-dead and placed on life support.
    — Emma Seiwell, New York Daily News, 15 June 2024
  • A week later, he was taken to surgery to have his organs removed for donation — even though his heart was beating and he hadn’t been declared brain-dead, Zohny said.
    — Cara Anthony, Miami Herald, 13 Sep. 2025
  • A week later, he was taken to surgery to have his organs removed for donation — even though his heart was beating and he hadn’t been declared brain-dead, Zohny said.
    — Kff Health News, Oc Register, 12 Sep. 2025
  • A week later, he was taken to surgery to have his organs removed for donation — even though his heart was beating and he hadn’t been declared brain-dead, Zohny said.
    — Cara Anthony, CNN Money, 11 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'brain-dead.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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