think tank

noun

Definition of think tank

: an institute, corporation, or group organized to study a particular subject (such as a policy issue or a scientific problem) and provide information, ideas, and advice an information technology think tank … was responsible for the armies of new political-action committees, lobbyists and rightward think tanks that poured into Washington to counter the consumer and environmental movements he helped to inspire.— Jonathan Rowe

Examples of think tank in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Jean Jaures Foundation, a think tank connected with the Socialist Party, studied online activity by Drouet and Nicolle, and said both are tacitly affiliated with France’s far-right party. — Lori Hinnant, The Seattle Times, "French yellow vest movement dogged by intolerance, extremism," 29 Jan. 2019 Was a row about an anti-disinformation think tank part of a Russian influence campaign? — Casey Newton, The Verge, "How Congress missed another chance to hold big tech accountable," 12 Dec. 2018 European leaders had already taken into account the disrupter Trump, said Tomas Valasek, the director of Carnegie Europe, a foreign policy think tank. — Steven Erlanger, New York Times, "Amid the Trumpian Chaos, Europe Sees a Strategy: Divide and Conquer," 13 July 2018 Multiple studies from social scientists and the libertarian think tank Cato Institute have found that people in the U.S. illegally are less likely to commit crime than U.S. citizens, and legal immigrants are even less likely to do so. — Hope Yen, The Seattle Times, "AP fact check: Trump isn’t holed up nonstop at White House," 14 Jan. 2019 Vanda Felbab-Brown, an insurgency expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, told me in August. — Alex Ward, Vox, "After 17 years of war, Afghan government and Taliban may meet for peace talks," 18 Dec. 2018 With this data, the think tank was able to estimate the production even in places like China that don’t make their financial information publicly available (coal plants in North America and Europe make this data public). — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, "Nearly Half the World's Coal Plants Are Losing Money," 4 Dec. 2018 The targets of the Cozy Bear attacks include US government agencies, think tanks, and businesses. — Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, "Ukraine detects new Pterodo backdoor malware, warns of Russian cyberattack," 20 Nov. 2018 But the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the bill still threatened to undermine Israel's democratic values. — Aron Heller, Fox News, "Contentious bill defines Israel as Jewish nation-state," 16 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'think tank.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.