get down to brass tacks
UK/ɡɛt ˈdaʊn tə bɹɑːs ˈtæks//ɡɛt ˈdaʊn tə bɹæs ˈtæks/
get down to brass tacks verb: to (start to) consider or deal with the most important details or facts about something.
Verb
get down to brass tacks (third-person singular simple present gets down to brass tacks, present participle getting down to brass tacks, simple past got down to brass tacks, past participle gotten down to brass tacks or got down to brass tacks)
- To (start to) consider or deal with the most important details or facts about something.
- He did not wish to delay action, but was ready to vote instanter.—A reference now would amount to a defeat of the memorial. It was better to come right down to the brass and vote.[1854 April 1, “Legislative matters. […] Log-rolling of a land grant memorial through the Assembly”, in Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, volume X (New Series), number 2939, Milwaukee, Wis.: Rufus King &...
- When you come down to brass tacks—if we may be allowed the expression—everybody is governed by selfishness.[1863 January 21, Edward Hopkins Cushing, editor, The Tri-weekly Telegraph, Houston, Tex.: Allen & Brockett, →OCLC
get down to brass tacks meaning in Kannada
get down to brass tacks in Kannada
- ಮುಖ್ಯ ವಿಷಯಕ್ಕೆ ಬರು, ವಿಷಯಕ್ಕೆ ಪ್ರಾಧಾನ್ಯನೀಡು
Examples of get down to brass tacks in a sentence
- We're gonna stop playing games with these Arabs and get down to brass tacks!1979, Stephen King, The Dead Zone, London: Futura Publications, published 1987, →ISBN, page 337:
- Let's get down to brass tacks, gentlemen.1994 May 21, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel), Los Angeles, Calif.: Miramax Films...
Synonyms of get down to brass tacks
- break down to brass tacks
- cut to the chase
- drill down
- get down to bedrock
- get down to brass nails
- get down to business
- get down to cases
- get down to nuts and bolts
- get down to the nitty-gritty
- get right down to cases
2 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of get down to brass tacks
| third-person singular present | gets down to brass tacks |
|---|---|
| present participle | getting down to brass tacks |
| past | got down to brass tacks |
| past participle | gotten down to brass tacks |
| past participle | got down to brass tacks |
Origin of get down to brass tacks
The origin is uncertain. It is probably a variant of the earlier term down to the brass (see, for example, the 1854 quotation), and the following etymologies have been suggested: * The term refers to the brass tacks used in upholstery which have to be removed when a piece of furniture is reupholstered, or brass tacks stuck into the counter of a draper’s shop or hardware store to measure items precisely in yards. * Another possibility is that the brass tacks are nails used to seal coffin lids, or tacks used to decorate or indicate a deceased person’s initials on such lids, and thus the term refers to dealing with matters as serious as death.
Words that rhyme with get down to brass tacks
Questions about get down to brass tacks
- What does get down to brass tacks mean?
- Get down to brass tacks means to (start to) consider or deal with the most important details or facts about something.
- What is get down to brass tacks in Kannada?
- Get down to brass tacks in Kannada is ಮುಖ್ಯ ವಿಷಯಕ್ಕೆ ಬರು, ವಿಷಯಕ್ಕೆ ಪ್ರಾಧಾನ್ಯನೀಡು. See Get down to brass tacks meaning in Kannada.
- How do you use get down to brass tacks in a sentence?
- We're gonna stop playing games with these Arabs and get down to brass tacks!
- What part of speech is get down to brass tacks?
- Get down to brass tacks is a verb.
- How do you pronounce get down to brass tacks?
- Get down to brass tacks is pronounced /ɡɛt ˈdaʊn tə bɹɑːs ˈtæks/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of get down to brass tacks?
- The past tense of get down to brass tacks is got down to brass tacks.
Words near get down to brass tacks in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: get down to brass tacks (page history and authors); get down to brass tacks (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-get down to brass tacks.wav, En-au-get down to brass tacks.ogg.
Cite this entry: “get down to brass tacks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_down_to_brass_tacks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.