What are brass balls?
Madison Flores
Published May 17, 2026
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Keeping this in consideration, what does bring in the brass monkeys mean?
NOOKS AND CRANNIES. The expression: "It is cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey" comes from the practice of putting iron cannon balls on a dimpled brass plate on the deck of a war-ship. When very cold the brass contracted sufficiently to cause the iron balls to fall out.
Furthermore, where does the term brass come from? Our employer will not like it if we do nothing. American workers often call their employers "bosses." The word boss comes from the Dutch word "baas," meaning master. Sometimes company bosses are called the brass. So a leader or commander came to be called a member of the brass. Or he might have been called a brass hat.
Also to know is, what does freeze the balls off a brass monkey?
To freeze the balls off a brass monkey means it is very cold. It is widely believed that a brass monkey is a brass tray used in naval ships during the Napoleonic Wars for the storage of cannonballs (piled up in a pyramid). The theory goes that the tray would contract in cold weather, causing the balls to fall off.
How cold does it have to be to freeze the balls off a brass monkey?
If the base of the stack were one metre long, the drop in temperature needed to make the 'monkey' shrink relative to the balls by just one millimetre, would be around 100 degrees Celsius.
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