The first thought that comes to my mind when I read or hear this word is about school. I was formally introduced to history in my Third grade, I think (my history is very weak hence the uncertainty). And I hated history soon after our first encounter. History, a subject which deals with things which are (usually) old and ancient, surprisingly brought many new things in my life, like the realization that there are questions which have to be answered in more than one line. Till then I only knew 'Answer in one line' type of questions but the dawn of History introduced me to 'Answer in brief' type of questions which had a page long answers. One more interesting thing about these answers was that though they say 'Answer in brief' there was nothing brief about the answers for me. One page answer - that was 'huge' for me. Hence the word 'brief' became synonymous with 'big' for me. It took me some years to realise that it actually means quite