brass monkey
Very coldVery cold.
» It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!
Meaning
1 senses(idiomatic, not comparable)Very cold.
It's brass monkey weather today, isn't it?
Examples
6 sentencesIt's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!
It's brass monkey weather.
It's brass monkeys at home.
deZu Hause ist es hundekalt.
It's brass monkeys.
deEs ist frostig kalt.
It's brass monkeys here!
Origin
From the phrase cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. According to the U.S.From the phrase cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. According to the U.S. Naval Historical Center, which cites the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, 'the first recorded use of the term "brass monkey" appears to dates^([sic]) to 1857 when it was used in an apparently vulgar context by C.A. Abbey in his book Before the Mast in the Clippers, where on page 108 it says "It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey."' A number of false etymologies have been suggested. For more information, see brass monkey on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source