Other forms: brasses
Brass is a bright yellow metal made from copper and zinc, used for door handles, instruments and fittings. Polished brass, a brass band, brass buttons.
In music, the brass is the whole section of trumpets, trombones, horns and tubas, and a brass band is a specifically British institution. Two informal senses are worth having: brass means senior officers or management — the top brass — and in northern English brass means money. Note brass neck, meaning shameless nerve, and as bold as brass, which is the same idea. Brass rubbing is taking an impression of an engraved memorial, which is a real hobby.
1nounbrassA bright yellow metal made from copper and zinc.
“The handles are solid brass and need polishing.”
2nounsectionThe section of an orchestra or band playing trumpets, horns and trombones.
“The brass came in too early.”
3nounseniorSenior officers or managers, informally.
“The top brass turned up for the announcement.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
brass is a metal.
Old English braes has no clear relatives outside English, which is unusual for a metal name. It may be borrowed from a language now lost. The word brazen, meaning shameless, is brass plus -en and started as simply made of brass.
Proto-Germanic
*brasnaz — brazen
Old English
bræs — brass, bronze
Middle English
bras, bres
English, today
brass
Built from
From Middle English bras, bres, from Old English bræs (“brass, bronze”), of unknown 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 gem 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 (“brass”) In the military sense an an ellipsis of brass hat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA