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Brass   /bræs/   Listen
noun
Brass  n.  (pl. brasses)  
1.
An alloy (usually yellow) of copper and zinc, in variable proportion, but often containing two parts of copper to one part of zinc. It sometimes contains tin, and rarely other metals.
2.
(Mach.) A journal bearing, so called because frequently made of brass. A brass is often lined with a softer metal, when the latter is generally called a white metal lining. See Axle box, Journal Box, and Bearing.
3.
Coin made of copper, brass, or bronze. (Obs.) "Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey."
4.
Impudence; a brazen face. (Colloq.)
5.
pl. Utensils, ornaments, or other articles of brass. "The very scullion who cleans the brasses."
6.
A brass plate engraved with a figure or device. Specifically, one used as a memorial to the dead, and generally having the portrait, coat of arms, etc.
7.
pl. (Mining) Lumps of pyrites or sulphuret of iron, the color of which is near to that of brass. Note: The word brass as used in Sculpture language is a translation for copper or some kind of bronze. Note: Brass is often used adjectively or in self-explaining compounds; as, brass button, brass kettle, brass founder, brass foundry or brassfoundry.
Brass band (Mus.), a band of musicians who play upon wind instruments made of brass, as trumpets, cornets, etc.
Brass foil, Brass leaf, brass made into very thin sheets; called also Dutch gold.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Brass" Quotes from Famous Books



... that had finished rearing their young by the sixteenth of June were fortunate, for on the morning of that day a great and continuous shouting, with gun-firing, banging on old brass and iron utensils, with various other loud, unusual noises, were heard at one extremity of the village, and continued with occasional quiet intervals until evening. This tempest of rude sounds spread from day to day, until the entire area of the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... you'd ha' thought that Bob Pretty's 'ouse was a peep-show. Everybody stared at the winders as they went by, and the children played in front of the 'ouse and stared in all day long. Then the old gentleman was seen one day as bold as brass sitting at the winder, and we heard that it was a pore old tramp Bob Pretty 'ad met on the road and given a home to, and he didn't like 'is good-'artedness to be known for fear he should be ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... coiled themselves to sleep in the noon-day sun, still contained gold enough to reward patient industry—industry of which the foreign-devils were not capable when the result would be but five pennyweights a day, washed out in the hot waters of the creek under a sky of brass, "with flour at two-pounds-ten per 50 lb. ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... more inspiring congregational singing, and the use of the piano, organ, orchestra and brass band are important factors in the curriculum. In the chapel I spoke to an audience so attentive, so alert, so receptive, so filled with animation, that the whole place looked like a vast advertisement ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... him for a moment thoughtfully. Phipps was a man of brass, without sensitiveness or sensibility. Nevertheless, he flushed a little. Just then dinner was announced and Lady Amesbury bustled once more into the midst ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim


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