The idiom “brass monkey” means extremely cold weather. Its origins are unclear, but it is often used in the longer phrase “cold enough to freeze a brass monkey’s balls.” Idioms are short phrases with meanings that differ from their literal definitions and can be colorful or risqué.
When someone refers to the weather as “brass monkey,” they are using an English idiom to mean that the weather is extremely cold. This is the kind of idiom that is used in the most extreme circumstances to add some expressiveness to a basic description. The longer version of the sentence is used when someone says, “It’s cold enough to freeze a brass monkey’s balls.” It’s hard to ascertain whether the phrase had nautical origins when referring to the way cannonballs were stacked on a ship, but most who use it in modern times understand that the word “balls” is sometimes slang for testicles.
Idioms are short phrases that have acquired meanings over time that are often very different from the literal definitions of the words they contain. Their meanings often change slowly once they originate, to the point where they are often used as a sort of colored shorthand to describe something that may have no connection to idioms. Some idioms are extremely colorful in nature and might even be considered a little risqué. One such obscene and humorous idiom is the phrase “brass monkey” to describe the weather.
The meaning of this idiom is quite simple. When the weather is described like this, it means it’s very cold outside. Usually, this description is saved for the cold which is extremely out of the ordinary. Allows the speaker to lighten the freezing weather. For example, a person might say, “The winds are forecast to be so cold tonight that it will be real brass monkey weather.”
While the accepted meaning of the phrase is pretty simple, the origins of the phrase are a bit more complicated. The phrase is often lengthened into the full sentence, “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.” In this regard, it would seem to mean that the cold actually damages the testicles of an inanimate object.
There are a few explanations to the origins of this phrase that have emerged since it first gained momentum in the first half of the 20th century. The most common explanation refers to the alleged practice of encasing cannonballs on a ship in a brass contraption, which, if contracted by the cold, would allow the cannonballs to fall. This account, however, doesn’t seem to mess with the timing or usage of the phrase. Instead, it is very likely that “brass monkey” was only intended as a humorous idiom to be used in extreme cold conditions.
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