"brass neck" meaning in English

See brass neck in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-brass neck.ogg [Australia] Forms: brass necks [plural]
Etymology: From stick one's neck out. Etymology templates: {{m|en|stick one's neck out}} stick one's neck out Head templates: {{en-noun}} brass neck (plural brass necks)
  1. (idiomatic, UK, Ireland) Gall, shamelessness, cheek. Tags: Ireland, UK, idiomatic Categories (topical): People
    Sense id: en-brass_neck-en-noun-DVSvDzjL Disambiguation of People: 86 14 Categories (other): British English, Irish English
  2. (idiomatic, UK, Ireland) A person with gall. Tags: Ireland, UK, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-brass_neck-en-noun-xxHZ0wvi Categories (other): British English, Irish English
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: brass-balled, brass-necked, brass-neck [verb], [to have] a neck like a jockey's bollocks [Irish, slang]

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for brass neck meaning in English (4.0kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "stick one's neck out"
      },
      "expansion": "stick one's neck out",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From stick one's neck out.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brass necks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brass neck (plural brass necks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "brass-balled"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "brass-necked"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "tags": [
        "verb"
      ],
      "word": "brass-neck"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "tags": [
        "Irish",
        "slang"
      ],
      "word": "[to have] a neck like a jockey's bollocks"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Irish English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "86 14",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
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            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "18 March 2014, John Hyde, “Help for Heroes? Not from this government”, in The Law Society Gazette, archived from the original on 2014-03-20",
          "text": "This year's commemorations of the start of World War One are a stark reminder of the sacrifices politicians make with other people's lives – except nowadays they'll do so wearing a Help for Heroes t-shirt (almost entirely covering their brass necks). When it comes to the hypocritical lauding of the armed forces while simultaneously shafting them, no one does it better than this government.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016-03-27, Helen Pidd, “Government's laughable cycling blueprint does nothing to boost safety”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "That’s why it’s particularly outrageous for the government to sneak out its rubbish “blueprint” for cycling and walking on Easter Sunday, and having the brass neck to try to spin its laughably small investment in cycling and walking as a genuine attempt to make them people’s choice for shorter journeys and to reduce the rate of cyclists killed or seriously injured.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020-09-06, Jessica Elgot, “UK's chief Brexit negotiator has 'brass neck', says former May aide”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Theresa May’s former chief of staff has accused the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, of having a “brass neck” after he said the UK government had “blinked first” in negotiations.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Gall, shamelessness, cheek."
      ],
      "id": "en-brass_neck-en-noun-DVSvDzjL",
      "links": [
        [
          "Gall",
          "gall"
        ],
        [
          "shamelessness",
          "shamelessness"
        ],
        [
          "cheek",
          "cheek"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, UK, Ireland) Gall, shamelessness, cheek."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
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          "kind": "other",
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          "source": "w"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 [2006], Robert Harris, Imperium (Cicero Trilogy), Random House, page 72",
          "text": "And it will need a strong hand to wield that knife, and it will need a steady nerve besides, because they have necks of brass, these aristocrats, I tell you: brass necks, all of them!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Stuart Ritchie, Science Fictions: Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science, Random House",
          "text": "Mostly, though, open data acts as a deterrent against committing fraud in the first place, since it would take the brassiest of brass necks to post a fake dataset on a public website.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person with gall."
      ],
      "id": "en-brass_neck-en-noun-xxHZ0wvi",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, UK, Ireland) A person with gall."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/En-au-brass_neck.ogg",
      "tags": [
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  "wikipedia": [
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  "word": "brass neck"
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{
  "categories": [
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  "etymology_templates": [
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      "expansion": "stick one's neck out",
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "brass necks",
      "tags": [
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  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "brass neck (plural brass necks)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "brass-balled"
    },
    {
      "word": "brass-necked"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "verb"
      ],
      "word": "brass-neck"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
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        "slang"
      ],
      "word": "[to have] a neck like a jockey's bollocks"
    }
  ],
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        "Irish English"
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          "ref": "18 March 2014, John Hyde, “Help for Heroes? Not from this government”, in The Law Society Gazette, archived from the original on 2014-03-20",
          "text": "This year's commemorations of the start of World War One are a stark reminder of the sacrifices politicians make with other people's lives – except nowadays they'll do so wearing a Help for Heroes t-shirt (almost entirely covering their brass necks). When it comes to the hypocritical lauding of the armed forces while simultaneously shafting them, no one does it better than this government.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016-03-27, Helen Pidd, “Government's laughable cycling blueprint does nothing to boost safety”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "That’s why it’s particularly outrageous for the government to sneak out its rubbish “blueprint” for cycling and walking on Easter Sunday, and having the brass neck to try to spin its laughably small investment in cycling and walking as a genuine attempt to make them people’s choice for shorter journeys and to reduce the rate of cyclists killed or seriously injured.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020-09-06, Jessica Elgot, “UK's chief Brexit negotiator has 'brass neck', says former May aide”, in The Guardian",
          "text": "Theresa May’s former chief of staff has accused the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, of having a “brass neck” after he said the UK government had “blinked first” in negotiations.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Gall, shamelessness, cheek."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Gall",
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        ],
        [
          "shamelessness",
          "shamelessness"
        ],
        [
          "cheek",
          "cheek"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, UK, Ireland) Gall, shamelessness, cheek."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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      "categories": [
        "British English",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 [2006], Robert Harris, Imperium (Cicero Trilogy), Random House, page 72",
          "text": "And it will need a strong hand to wield that knife, and it will need a steady nerve besides, because they have necks of brass, these aristocrats, I tell you: brass necks, all of them!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Stuart Ritchie, Science Fictions: Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science, Random House",
          "text": "Mostly, though, open data acts as a deterrent against committing fraud in the first place, since it would take the brassiest of brass necks to post a fake dataset on a public website.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person with gall."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, UK, Ireland) A person with gall."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Ireland",
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/En-au-brass_neck.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
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  "wikipedia": [
    "Green's Dictionary of Slang"
  ],
  "word": "brass neck"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-03-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-03-01 using wiktextract (68773ab and 5f6ddbb). 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.

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