Source etymology 1 · variant 1/2
Original entry ↗To coat with brass.
Made of brass, of or pertaining to brass. · Of the color of brass. · Impertinent, bold: brazen. · Bad, annoying; as wordplay applied especially to brass instruments.
From Middle English bras, bres, from Old English bræs (“brass, bronze”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps representing a backformation from Proto-Germanic *brasnaz (“brazen”), from or related to *brasō (“fire, pyre”). Compare Old Norse and Icelandic bras (“solder”), Icelandic brasa (“to harden in the fire”), Swedish brasa (“a small controlled fire”), Danish brase (“to fry”); French braser ("to solder"; > English braise) from the same Germanic root. Compare also Middle Dutch braspenninc ("a silver coin", literally, "silver-penny"; > Dutch braspenning), Old Frisian bress (“copper”), Middle Low German bras (“metal, ore”). In the military sense an ellipsis of the brass hats.
Relationships mentioned by the source
These are extracted mentions, not a timeline or a verified sequence of immediate parents.
- Inherited-form mentionbras, bresenm
- Inherited-form mentionbræsang
- Inherited-form mention*brasnazgem-pro
- Cognate mentionbraspennincdum
This page abbreviates 1 auxiliary source items. The etymology narrative is not shortened. Omission counts are available in the audit fields below; consult the original for complete auxiliary material.
Inspect preserved source fields
Raw extraction fields are retained for auditing. Their order does not establish ancestry.
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