Noun: brass
| Singular | brass |
| Plural | brasses |
Sample Sentences
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A few measures later, the brass comes in strong!
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The brass are not going to like this.
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The brass is not going to like this.
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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:]
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You've got a lot of brass telling me to do that!
Nouns inflected like brass
penniless-bench,
wintergrass,
kitchen pass,
grey fox,
grey box,
trailer hitch,
paleness,
loaded march,
Tush Push,
horribleness,
slaughteress,
chapparvovirus,
greenwax,
royal flush,
crab cactus,
geostress,
syngas,
wintercress,
ichthys,
ichthus, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. 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”).
2. In the military sense an ellipsis of the brass hats. See: Old English Nouns '
bræs'.