brass

noun

1. (countable, uncountable, usually)A metallic alloy of copper and zinc used in many industrial and plumbing applications.
2. (countable, uncountable, usually)A metallic alloy of copper and zinc used in many industrial and plumbing applications.
3. (uncountable, 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!”

4. (uncountable, usually)Spent cartridge casings (usually made of brass): the part of the cartridge left over after bullets or shells have been fired.
5. (uncountable, usually)The color of brass (etymology 1, noun sense 1).
6. (metonymically, uncountable, usually)High-ranking officers: the brass hats.

   “The brass are not going to like this.”

   “The brass is not going to like this.”

   “I don't want to keep the brass waiting, Chief.”

7. (informal, uncountable, usually)A brave or foolhardy attitude; impudence.

   “You've got a lot of brass telling me to do that!”

8. (Northern-England, dated, slang, uncountable, usually)Money.
9. (uncountable, usually)Inferior composition.
10. (countable, slang, usually)A prostitute.

    “Richard didn't want the man on the corner to go up and fuck one of the brasses.”

11. (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.

adj

1. Made of brass, of or pertaining to brass.
2. Of the color of brass.
3. (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.”

   “[...] 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."”

   “It was a show of very large and very brass cojones, [...]”

   “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.”

   “After cornering the dutch auction, the seller was brass enough to send him the whole lot without one.”

4. (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.”

   “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, [...]”

   “Mr. REGINALD SMITH, KC, the publisher, followed, but he had hardly begun his very interesting remarks when a procession headed by a very brass band entered Smithfield from the west, and approached the platform.”

   “There are soldiers, policemen, priests and friars, as well as a motley mass of women, children, babies and dogs, and upon special occasions a very brass band.”

   “The padre in my neighborhood — Santa Ana — was having some kind of a fiesta, and had hired a very brass band. This band kept up its martial airs for hours and hours after I got home, with grand finales — or what each time I hoped would be the grand finale, every five minutes.”

5. Of inferior composition.

   “As Honest Plush Brannon then, Mr. Beery is one of San Francisco's fancier con men and hence more brass than plush”

6. (slang)Brass monkey; cold.

verb

1. (transitive)To coat with brass.