brass

UK/bɹɑːs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Multicultural London English/bɹas/

brass noun: a memorial or sepulchral tablet usually made of brass or latten: a monumental brass.

Image: Splarka, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

brass (usually uncountable, plural brasses)

(countable, uncountable, usually) A memorial or sepulchral tablet usually made of brass or latten: a monumental brass.
(countable, uncountable, usually) Fittings, utensils, or other items made of brass.
(usually) A class of wind instruments, usually made of metal (such as brass), that use vibrations of the player's lips to produce sound; a band or the section of an orchestra that features such instruments.
- A few measures later, the brass comes in strong!
(usually) Spent cartridge casings (usually made of brass): the part of the cartridge left over after bullets or shells have been fired.
(usually) The color of brass (etymology 1, noun sense 1).
(metonymically, usually, business or other organizations) High-ranking officers: the brass hats.
- The brass are not going to like this.
- The brass is not going to like this.
(informal, usually) A brave or foolhardy attitude; impudence.
- You've got a lot of brass telling me to do that!
Synonyms:

bronze
(Northern England, dated, slang, usually) Money.
(usually) Inferior composition.

Adjective (1)

brass (comparative more brass, superlative most brass)

Made of brass, of or pertaining to brass.
Of the color of brass.
(informal) Impertinent, bold: brazen.
- At the Council board, I hope to charge him with that he cannot answer, and yet I know his face is brass enough.1869, John Bruce, editor, Calendar of State Papers, domestic series, of the reign of Charles I, 1637-1638, page 147
- [...] he continued in the same insulting strain. "If you were not quite brass, you would know it is not proper to be making promises you dare not tell of."1872, Elsie Leigh Whittlesey, Helen Ethinger: or, Not Exactly Right, page 154
(slang) Bad, annoying; as wordplay applied especially to brass instruments.
- Grindoff, the miller, 'and the leader of a very brass band of most unpopular performers, with a thorough base accompaniment of at least fifty vices,' was played by Miss Saunders.1888, Mr. & Mrs. Bancroft on and off the stage: written by themselves, volume 1, page 90
- I must confess that to me there is something almost pathetic in the sight of a body of bluejackets improving their muscles on the quarter deck by bar-bell exercise, accompanied by a brass — a very brass — band, [...]1900 November 3, “The Training of Seamen”, in The Saturday Review, volume 90, number 2349, page 556
Of inferior composition.
- As Honest Plush Brannon then, Mr. Beery is one of San Francisco's fancier con men and hence more brass than plush1939, The New York times film reviews, volume 3

Verb

brass (third-person singular simple present brasses, present participle brassing, simple past and past participle brassed)

(transitive) To coat with brass.

Noun (2)

brass (usually uncountable, plural brasses)

(countable, slang, usually) A prostitute.
- Health service glasses, gigolos and brasses, round or skinny bottoms1979, Chaz Jankel, Davey Payne & Ian Dury, “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3”, in Do It Yourself, performed by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
- Richard didn't want the man on the corner to go up and fuck one of the brasses.1996, Will Self, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, Bloomsbury, published 2011, page 2

Adjective (2)

brass

(slang) Brass monkey; cold.

Noun (3)

brass (plural brasses)

(historical, obsolete) Synonym of brace, a traditional unit of measure equivalent to a fathom (6 feet) or about 1.6 m, especially as the Spanish braza and Portuguese braça, also French brasse.

Synonyms:

brace

brass meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

brass in Hindi

alloy of copper and zinc: पीतल pītal

brass in Tamil

பித்தளை, துடுக்குப்பேச்சு, நாணமிலா நடத்தை, பித்தளைக்கலம், பித்தளையால் செய்யப்பட்ட

brass in Urdu

alloy of copper and zinc: پیتل pītal

More languagesFewer languages

brass in Bengali: পিতল pitol
brass in Telugu: ఇత్తడి ittaḍi
brass in Malayalam: പിച്ചള piccaḷa
brass in Kannada: ಹಿತ್ತಾಳೆ hittāḷe
brass in Punjabi: ਪਿੱਤਲ਼ pittaḷ, پتل pittaḷ, ਪਿੱਤਲ pittal
brass in Gujarati: પિત્તળ pittaḷ
brass in Odia: ଦାରୁ dāru
brass in Sanskrit: आर āra
brass in Nepali: ब्रास, पित्तला
brass in Arabic: شَبَه šabah, صُفْر ṣufr, صُفَّر ṣuffar
brass in Malay: loyang, kuningan, tembaga kuning
brass in Persian: برنج berenj, برنجی berenji
brass in Thai: ทองเหลือง tɔɔng-lʉ̌ʉang
brass in Vietnamese: đồng thau
brass in Myanmar: ကြေးဝါ kre:wa

Examples of brass in a sentence

I don't want to keep the brass waiting, Chief.2004 November 9, Bungie, Halo 2, spoken by Avery Johnson (David Scully), Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox, level/area: The Armory:
It was a show of very large and very brass cojones, [...]2011, Paul Christopher, The Templar Conspiracy:
Maybe (probably so), but it's rare someone is brass enough to post a msg for all to see asking for a software key, that the vast majority have paid for in support of the development effort.1996 May 24, 2:00 am, Sherman Simpson, Want license key for AGENT FOR WINDOWS95, alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent
After cornering the dutch auction, the seller was brass enough to send him the whole lot without one.2000 Aug 18, 2:00 am, David Ryan, strangest bid retraction /illegal lottery NOT, rec.collecting.coins

All 40 example sentences with brass

Synonyms of brass

bronze
brace

Forms of brass

Noun
plural	brasses
Adjective
comparative	more brass
superlative	most brass
Verb
third-person singular present	brasses
present participle	brassing
past participle	brassed
past	brassed

Plural of brass: brasses

Origin of brass

From Middle English bras, bres, from Old English bræs (“brass, bronze”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps representing a backformation from Proto-Germanic *brasnaz (“brazen”), from or related to *brasō (“fire, pyre”). Compare Old Norse and Icelandic bras (“solder”), Icelandic brasa (“to harden in the fire”), Swedish brasa (“a small controlled fire”), Danish brase (“to fry”); French braser ("to solder"; > English braise) from the same Germanic root. Compare also Middle Dutch braspenninc ("a silver coin", literally, "silver-penny"; > Dutch braspenning), Old Frisian bress (“copper”), Middle Low German bras (“metal, ore”) and برنج (branj, “brass”) In the military sense an ellipsis of the brass hats.

By ellipsis from brass nail, in turn from "nail[ing]" (fig.) and "brass blonde" (see "brazen"); and also shortened from Cockney Rhyming slang brass flute for "prostitute".

From Portuguese braça and Spanish braza, from Old Galician-Portuguese and Old Spanish braça, from Latin brachia, variant of bracchium (“arm, cubit”), from Ancient Greek βραχίων (brakhíōn, “upper arm”).

Words formed from brass

Phrases with brass

49 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with brass

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

surpass

Questions about brass

What does brass mean?: Brass means a memorial or sepulchral tablet usually made of brass or latten: a monumental brass.
What is brass in Hindi?: Brass in Hindi is पीतल (pītal). See Brass meaning in Hindi.
How do you use brass in a sentence?: I don't want to keep the brass waiting, Chief.
What part of speech is brass?: Brass can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce brass?: Brass is pronounced /bɹɑːs/ (UK).
What is the plural of brass?: The plural of brass is brasses.

Words near brass in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: brass (page history and authors); brass (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); पितळ (Marathi) (page history and authors); ಹಿತ್ತಾಳೆ (Kannada) (page history and authors); پتل (Punjabi) (page history and authors); પિત્તળ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଦାରୁ (Odia) (page history and authors); brass (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-brass.ogg.

Cite this entry: “brass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.