brassy
1 Americannoun
adjective
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insolent; brazen
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flashy; showy
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(of sound) harsh, strident, or resembling the sound of a brass instrument
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like brass, esp in colour
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decorated with or made of brass
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a variant spelling of brassie
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of brassy
Explanation
Someone who's brassy is bold and flashy — and maybe even a little rude. That brassy kid in class seems to get all the attention, while their quiet, shy classmates get overlooked. Use the adjective brassy to mean bold and brash, or to describe something that looks like the metal brass (but not in a good way): "He tried to dye his hair strawberry blonde, but it came out brassy." When something sounds brassy, it resembles a trumpet or trombone, or another brass instrument. The "brazen" meaning comes from a comparison of brass to gold; in the 16th century, brassy meant "strident and artificial."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Danielle Pinnock’s character, a Jamaican woman who is taken to America by a wizened older man she refers to as the “old raisin,” has a brassy boldness and bawdiness that also seduces the audience’s affections.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Marks jumped at the chance to perform for free inside the theater, his brassy freewheeling equally complementing and contrasting the sounds of the intersection.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2026
She was joined in the top 10 by another U.K. singer, Raye, who favors swank Sixties outfits and has a brassy hit called “Where Is My Husband!”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 18, 2026
Becoming essential to música Mexicana in the 1940s, this brassy woodwind instrument allowed bandas to put more emphasis on the melody.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2024
George knows that his sister is being brassy.
From "A Bird Will Soar" by Alison Green Myers
Simone Thiou de la Chaume, 15, petite Parisian prodigy, smacked her drives, whacked her brassies, cracked her irons, popped her putts in, won the British Girls' Golf Championship, was hailed "Lenglen of the Links."
From Time Magazine Archive
I see them top and slice a shot, And fail to follow through, And with their brassies plough the lot, The very way I do.
From Just Folks by Guest, Edgar A. (Edgar Albert)
The greater elaboration of such brassies as we had seen impressed us, and we also found some trouble with our oak heads in that, being green, they were rather inclined to chip and crack.
From The Complete Golfer by Vardon, Harry
Both used brassies and both were short of the green.
From Fore! by Loan, Charles Emmett Van
As a rule I need a fair drive and two screaming brassies on this long fifth before I am in position to approach across the ravine.
From Torchy As A Pa by Ford, Sewell
Through the years, as its audiences grew to arena size, the band was bolstered with keyboards, electric guitar and horns, growing brawnier, weightier and brassier.
From New York Times ● May 22, 2023
Soft-spoken and diffident, Biggie gets lost within the pages of “It Was All a Dream,” upstaged by more purpose-driven or brassier peers, including fellow rapper and early career mentor Tupac Shakur.
From Washington Post ● May 11, 2022
Once they graduated to the line, they adopted the brassier, saltier argot that cooking in conditions of extreme heat and pressure seemed to require.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 18, 2019
The brass are brassier, and the woodwinds blow through mysterious Finnish forests — but also have the cheery flavor of delicious small Finnish summer strawberries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2016
The cornet could be heard approaching nearer and nearer becoming brassier and brassier.
From Adventures of Bindle by Jenkins, Herbert George
He goes on to sketch his brassiest teenage move of all — picking up the phone one day in 1999 and calling Walter Alvarez at the University of California at Berkeley.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 1, 2018
What’s life like for those who reach for the brassiest of brass rings—the American presidency—and miss?
From Slate ● Nov. 10, 2012
American's George Washington Hill, the brassiest to-baccoon of all time, dreamed up the slogan "It's toasted" for Lucky Strike—even though all tobacco went through the same toasting process.
From Time Magazine Archive
The competing offers turned the fight for RJR Nabisco, whose brands range from Animals Crackers to Winston cigarettes, into the brassiest and potentially most damaging brawl in Wall Street history.
From Time Magazine Archive
Mike stuck out his tongue and blew the longest, loudest, brassiest, and juiciest Bronx cheer that Malone had ever heard.
From The Impossibles by Garrett, Randall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
