Also 6 brassie, -ye. [f. BRASS sb. + -Y1.]
1. Consisting of or covered with brass.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 32. Thee stayrs brassye grises stately presented.
1599. Marston, Sco. Villanie, II. vi. 200. That dreamed of Imagery, Whose head was gold, brest siluer, brassie thigh.
1880. L. Wallace, Ben-Hur, 328. On the left the brassy legions of Cæsar.
2. Of the nature or appearance of brass, in color, sound, taste, etc.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 426. [It] left a brassy taste in my mouth for a whole day.
1803. Phil. Trans., XCIII. 68. Of a pale brassy colour.
1847. Motherwell, Spirits of Light. Hark, to their trumpets’ brassy blare.
1857. Kingsley, Two Y. Ago, I. 65. The sky … is brassy green.
3. fig. with many varieties of sense.
a. Hard as brass, pitiless, unfeeling.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., IV. i. 31. And plucke commiseration of his state From brassie bosomes.
b. Having a ‘face of brass,’ unblushing, impudently confident, or forward.
1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 156. To make them blush … were they never so brassie and impudent.
1690. Def. Dr. Walker, 2. A brassy Impudence.
1793. J. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Churchw. Betty was too brassy, We never keep a sarvant that is saucy.
1846. D. Jerrold, Chron. Clovernook, Wks. IV. 415. A brassy confidence in his face.
c. Of brass, as opposed to ‘golden’; debased yet pretentious.
1586. Ferne, Lacies Nobilitie, 2. This present age, which is growne so harde and brassye, for the golden dayes are long sithence ouer-passed.
1842. Tennyson, Amphion, ix. In such a brassy age I could not move a thistle.
d. Harsh and feelingless in tone, like a brass instrument; having a strident artificial tone.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., 74. To say it is to fall into just that hard, brassy, over-stretched style which Mr. Kinglake himself employs so far too much.
1870. Daily News, 26 July, 5. Its brassy clangour of quickly-recurring rhymes.
1884. J. A. Symonds, Shakspere’s Predecessors, 508. Aretino … proved his originality by creating a new manner, brassy and meretricious.
