Plural of birdbrain; people who are considered foolish or stupid.
Simple plural form of 'birdbrain,' which itself is a noun derived from the adjective phrase 'birdbrained.' It became especially common in 20th-century American slang as a casual insult for scatterbrained people.
As an insult, 'birdbrain' reveals how humans create hierarchy through language—we call people 'birdbrained' not because they're actually like birds, but because we've decided that being bird-like is somehow inferior, which says more about human psychology than about actual bird intelligence.
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