Brass

How to spell brass

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce brass

What does brass mean?

1. nounA yellow metal made by combining copper and zinc, used for fittings, instruments, and decorative hardware.
2. nounThe section of an orchestra or band made up of trumpets, trombones, tubas, and similar instruments.
3. nounThe most senior people in an organisation, especially military officers or company executives, often called the top brass.

Brass in a sentence

• The door handles were polished brass that gleamed in the hall.

• The brass came in loudly during the final movement of the symphony.

• The decision came down from the top brass at headquarters.

• He buffed the brass fittings on the antique clock until they shone.

• She played in the school brass band for three years.

• All the company brass attended the annual review meeting.

Where does brass come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Brass comes straight from the Old English word bræs, which named the yellowish metal made by mixing copper with zinc. Its deeper origins are genuinely obscure: unlike most metal names it has no clear relatives in the other early Germanic languages, so scholars cannot point with confidence to an older root, and some have linked it tentatively to Old French brasser, 'to brew or mix', because the alloy is mixed in a furnace. Over the centuries the word picked up several figurative uses that all play on the metal's bold, shiny cheapness: 'bold as brass' for nerve, 'top brass' for senior officers (whose uniforms once glittered with brass buttons and braid), and 'the brass' for the brass instruments of a band. The simple spelling, one vowel and a doubled s, has stayed remarkably stable since Anglo-Saxon times.

How the word is built

• brass (a single Old English root, bræs, meaning the copper-and-zinc alloy; no prefix or suffix)