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• think tank
  think tank

  noun

  a research institute or organization employed to solve complex problems or predict or plan future developments, as in military, political, or social areas.
• think-tank
  think-tank

  noun

  a group of specialists organized by a business enterprise, governmental body, etc, and commissioned to undertake intensive study and research into specified problems

think tank

American  

noun

think tanks plural

1. a research institute or organization employed to solve complex problems or predict or plan future developments, as in military, political, or social areas.

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think-tank British  

noun

1. informal a group of specialists organized by a business enterprise, governmental body, etc, and commissioned to undertake intensive study and research into specified problems

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think tank Cultural  

1. An institution in which scholars pursue research in public policy. Largely funded by endowments and grants, think tanks work to improve public awareness of policy issues (through publications) and to influence the government to act upon issues of national importance. (See power elite.)

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think tank Idioms  

1. A group or organization dedicated to problem-solving and research, especially in such areas as technology, social or political strategy, and the military. For example, The congressional leaders rely too heavily on that conservative think tank. This term originated about 1900 as a facetious colloquialism for brain and was given its new meaning about 1950.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• think tanks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of think tank

1900–05 for earlier sense “brain”; 1955–60 for current sense

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

think tank think-tank

A blueprint for No 10 North produced by the think tank Re:State recommends a workforce of as many as 300 staff within 18 months.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

“The perception in the Trump administration is that Israel is a loose cannon,” said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a senior nonresident fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a Washington think tank.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

"She is an unorthodox choice, as all previous Hungarian presidents had political experience," Peter Kreko, head of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, told AFP.

From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 2026

“They haven’t moved the needle,” said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026

This particular think tank was the Thornton Unified Research and Development Institute.

From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles

The figures have been much the same for years, both at Gallup and when tracked by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a think-tank.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026

More immediately, though, from a buyer's lens, the timely implementation of CAFE-3 regulations will be a key propellent, Amitabh Kant, former CEO of Niti Aayog, the government's think-tank, wrote recently in the Indian Express newspaper.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026

Michael Kugelman of The Atlantic Council think-tank says Trump appears to see Pakistan's wartime performance as a "David-versus-Goliath story" - helping explain, at least partly, "his admiration for Munir".

From BBC ● May 7, 2026

"This may buy the UK some temporary reprieve from Trump but will not fundamentally change what remains a very fractured so-called special relationship," Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think-tank, told AFP.

From Barron's ● May 1, 2026

Her mentor was Donn Parker, the California think-tank theorist who got it all started 'way back in the mid-70s, the "grandfather of the field," "the great bald eagle of computer crime."

From The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier by Sterling, Bruce