Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Made of or decorated with brass.
- adj. Resembling brass, as in color.
- adj. Music Resembling or characterized by the sound of brass instruments: "The band was now playing some brassy march” ( Robert Penn Warren).
- adj. Cheap and showy; flashy.
- adj. Informal Brazen; insolent.
- n. Variant of brassie.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pertaining to or having any of the qualities of brass; brazen: chiefly used in a derogatory sense: as, a brassy taste; the coloring is brassy.
- Brazen-faced; impudent.
- n. A Scotch name of the bib, a gadoid fish.
- n. A wooden golf-club shod with brass on the sole.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to brass; having the nature, appearance, or hardness, of brass.
- adj. Impudent; impudently bold.
- n. A wooden club soled with brass.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. resembling the sound of a brass instrument
- adj. tastelessly showy
- adj. unrestrained by convention or propriety
Examples
“Well," said Thomas, as he reached his ball, "that's not what I call a brassy lie.”
“Â Oscillator 2 provides a-not particularly "brassy" - pulse wave, which brings in the ensemble.”
“By adding the extra color, Sharp says, a TV's color gamut can be expanded from millions to trillions of colors, resulting in more natural, truer images, and the ability to more accurately display hard-to-depict colors, such as brassy gold.”
Consumer Reports: Sharp readies “Quattron” LCD TVs with an extra primary color
“Specializing in such life-threatening dishes as deep-fried macaroni and cheese and bread pudding made from Krispy Kreme donuts, Ms. Deen is high-voltage Dixie kitsch, a cartoon version of the kind of brassy, boozy aunt that the other aunts always refer to as a "hoot.”
“It is accompanied by a peculiar "brassy," ringing cough, which, once heard, can never be mistaken.”
Hygienic Physiology : with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
“The gloomy, lowering, red light which had suffused the sky at the going down of the sun had given place to a dull, copper-coloured glow, mingled with a kind of brassy glare, all the more ominous from the fact that there was no visible source of its origin; for in the ordinary course of events it should have been quite dark, except for such light as was given by the moon, the sun having disappeared more than an hour and a half previously.”
“What's "brassy" is the balls of the legal wingnuts at Apple fucking about with the advance of open standards.”
“At emblematic moments, two files of musicians playing tubas, trumpets and baritones walk onto the stage, sounding a manic, brassy fanfare.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Rollicking and Riveting 'Lady Macbeth'
“The same brassy riff has introduced Jorge Posada for years.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Player's Big Decision: Intro Music
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