"bold as brass" meaning in English

See bold as brass in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Audio: En-au-bold as brass.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Popularly supposed to have originated in reference to Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London in the 1770s, who was bold enough to defy the British parliament. However, this origin theory is dismissed by some as bogus. Head templates: {{head|en|adjective}} bold as brass
  1. (simile) Very bold; very forward or impudent. Wikipedia link: Brass Crosby Related terms: brazen
    Sense id: en-bold_as_brass-en-adj-yWDEMv8t Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English similes

Download JSON data for bold as brass meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Popularly supposed to have originated in reference to Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London in the 1770s, who was bold enough to defy the British parliament. However, this origin theory is dismissed by some as bogus.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective"
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      "expansion": "bold as brass",
      "name": "head"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
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          "source": "w"
        },
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English similes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997, James Gardiner, Who's a Pretty Boy Then?, page 123",
          "text": "Well, she schlumphed her Vera down the screech at a rate of knots, zhooshed up the riah, checked the slap in the mirror behind the bar, straightened up one ogle fake riah that had come adrift, and bold as brass orderlied over as fast as she could manage in those bats and, in her best lips, asked, if she could parker the omi a bevvy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 March 24, Dr. Joseph Brennan, “Metallic marvels from rail's Iron Age”, in RAIL, number 927, page 57",
          "text": "In true Victorian bold-as-brass fashion, passengers often travelled across structures built to span ravines and valleys and bodies of fast-moving water, even as debates rolled on into the safety and suitability of materials used.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 April 2, Sarfraz Manzoor, quoting Suzi Ronson, “‘Bowie said he’d sell his soul to be famous’: Suzi Ronson on sex, ruthless ambition – and dyeing David’s hair red”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "“Angie was American, she was tall, cool and as bold as brass,” recalls Ronson. “I couldn’t believe how amazing she was.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Very bold; very forward or impudent."
      ],
      "id": "en-bold_as_brass-en-adj-yWDEMv8t",
      "links": [
        [
          "bold",
          "bold"
        ],
        [
          "forward",
          "forward"
        ],
        [
          "impudent",
          "impudent"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(simile) Very bold; very forward or impudent."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "brazen"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Brass Crosby"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-bold as brass.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/69/En-au-bold_as_brass.ogg/En-au-bold_as_brass.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/En-au-bold_as_brass.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bold as brass"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Popularly supposed to have originated in reference to Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London in the 1770s, who was bold enough to defy the British parliament. However, this origin theory is dismissed by some as bogus.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "adjective"
      },
      "expansion": "bold as brass",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "brazen"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English similes",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997, James Gardiner, Who's a Pretty Boy Then?, page 123",
          "text": "Well, she schlumphed her Vera down the screech at a rate of knots, zhooshed up the riah, checked the slap in the mirror behind the bar, straightened up one ogle fake riah that had come adrift, and bold as brass orderlied over as fast as she could manage in those bats and, in her best lips, asked, if she could parker the omi a bevvy.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 March 24, Dr. Joseph Brennan, “Metallic marvels from rail's Iron Age”, in RAIL, number 927, page 57",
          "text": "In true Victorian bold-as-brass fashion, passengers often travelled across structures built to span ravines and valleys and bodies of fast-moving water, even as debates rolled on into the safety and suitability of materials used.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 April 2, Sarfraz Manzoor, quoting Suzi Ronson, “‘Bowie said he’d sell his soul to be famous’: Suzi Ronson on sex, ruthless ambition – and dyeing David’s hair red”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "“Angie was American, she was tall, cool and as bold as brass,” recalls Ronson. “I couldn’t believe how amazing she was.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Very bold; very forward or impudent."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "bold",
          "bold"
        ],
        [
          "forward",
          "forward"
        ],
        [
          "impudent",
          "impudent"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(simile) Very bold; very forward or impudent."
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Brass Crosby"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-bold as brass.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/69/En-au-bold_as_brass.ogg/En-au-bold_as_brass.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/En-au-bold_as_brass.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "bold as brass"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.