"brass ceiling" meaning in All languages combined

See brass ceiling on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: en-au-brass ceiling.ogg [Australia] Forms: brass ceilings [plural]
Etymology: From brass (“indicating high-ranking officers”) + ceiling (“suggesting a barrier to upward advancement”). Etymology templates: {{af|en|brass|ceiling|t1=indicating high-ranking officers|t2=suggesting a barrier to upward advancement}} brass (“indicating high-ranking officers”) + ceiling (“suggesting a barrier to upward advancement”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} brass ceiling (plural brass ceilings)
  1. (idiomatic) An unwritten, uncodified barrier to promotion or progression for women in law enforcement or the military. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: glass ceiling, bamboo ceiling, cotton ceiling

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "brass",
        "3": "ceiling",
        "t1": "indicating high-ranking officers",
        "t2": "suggesting a barrier to upward advancement"
      },
      "expansion": "brass (“indicating high-ranking officers”) + ceiling (“suggesting a barrier to upward advancement”)",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From brass (“indicating high-ranking officers”) + ceiling (“suggesting a barrier to upward advancement”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brass ceilings",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brass ceiling (plural brass ceilings)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Feminism",
          "orig": "en:Feminism",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Forms of discrimination",
          "orig": "en:Forms of discrimination",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law enforcement",
          "orig": "en:Law enforcement",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Military",
          "orig": "en:Military",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, Dorothy Moses Schulz, Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Paths to the Top, Greenwood Publishing, →ISBN:",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Breaking Through the Brass Ceiling: Elite Military Women's Strategies for Success, ProQuest., →ISBN:",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unwritten, uncodified barrier to promotion or progression for women in law enforcement or the military."
      ],
      "id": "en-brass_ceiling-en-noun-yjhRPmUj",
      "links": [
        [
          "unwritten",
          "unwritten"
        ],
        [
          "uncodified",
          "uncodified"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ],
        [
          "promotion",
          "promotion"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An unwritten, uncodified barrier to promotion or progression for women in law enforcement or the military."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "glass ceiling"
        },
        {
          "word": "bamboo ceiling"
        },
        {
          "word": "cotton ceiling"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-brass ceiling.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c5/En-au-brass_ceiling.ogg/En-au-brass_ceiling.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/En-au-brass_ceiling.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "brass ceiling"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "brass",
        "3": "ceiling",
        "t1": "indicating high-ranking officers",
        "t2": "suggesting a barrier to upward advancement"
      },
      "expansion": "brass (“indicating high-ranking officers”) + ceiling (“suggesting a barrier to upward advancement”)",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From brass (“indicating high-ranking officers”) + ceiling (“suggesting a barrier to upward advancement”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brass ceilings",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brass ceiling (plural brass ceilings)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "glass ceiling"
    },
    {
      "word": "bamboo ceiling"
    },
    {
      "word": "cotton ceiling"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English compound terms",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Feminism",
        "en:Forms of discrimination",
        "en:Law enforcement",
        "en:Military"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, Dorothy Moses Schulz, Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Paths to the Top, Greenwood Publishing, →ISBN:",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Breaking Through the Brass Ceiling: Elite Military Women's Strategies for Success, ProQuest., →ISBN:",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An unwritten, uncodified barrier to promotion or progression for women in law enforcement or the military."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "unwritten",
          "unwritten"
        ],
        [
          "uncodified",
          "uncodified"
        ],
        [
          "barrier",
          "barrier"
        ],
        [
          "promotion",
          "promotion"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) An unwritten, uncodified barrier to promotion or progression for women in law enforcement or the military."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-brass ceiling.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c5/En-au-brass_ceiling.ogg/En-au-brass_ceiling.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/En-au-brass_ceiling.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "brass ceiling"
}

Download raw JSONL data for brass ceiling meaning in All languages combined (2.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.