/kəʊld ɪˈnʌf tə ˈfɹiːz ðə ˈbɔːlz ɒf ə ˈbɹɑːs ˈmʌŋki/
English idiom, informal, mildly rude. It is bitterly cold.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
?
Informal, and mostly British, Irish and Australian. The full version usually starts with “it’s”: “it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey out there”. The “balls” gives it a cheeky ring, so in polite company people cut it down to “it’s brass monkeys” or “brass monkey weather”.
Also said it’s brass monkeys, brass monkey weather
Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
in real sentences
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It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!
Tatoeba, sentence by AutoBot, CC BY 2.0 FR
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It’s brass monkeys.
Tatoeba, sentence by sundown, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
come from?
The earliest record that English Wiktionary cites (via the US Naval Historical Center and the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang) is from C.A. Abbey’s Before the Mast in the Clippers, dated 1857: “It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey.” The famous story about brass trays of cannonballs on warships shrinking in the cold has been debunked by both the US Navy’s historians and Snopes. The fuller version with “balls” is the one people know; what the monkey originally was, nobody can say for sure.
Mistakes learners make with Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
Using the short form about a person. “I’m brass monkeys” doesn’t work: the weather or the place is brass monkeys, as in “it’s brass monkeys in here, shut the window”.
Other English idioms like Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
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