Brass Monkey (colloquialism) - Wikipedia

Early references to "brass monkeys" in the 19th century have no references to balls at all, but instead variously say that it is cold enough to freeze the tail, nose, ears, and whiskers off a brass monkey; or hot enough to "scald the throat" or "singe the hair" of a brass monkey.[5]

• An early known recorded use of the phrase "brass monkey" appears in the humorous essay "On Enjoying Life" by Eldridge Gerry Paige (writing under the pseudonym Dow, Jr.), published in the New York Sunday Mercury and republished in the book Short Patent Sermons by Dow, Jr.: "When you love, [...] your heart, hands, feet and flesh are as cold and senseless as the toes of a brass monkey in winter."[6]
• Another early published instance of the phrase appeared in 1847, in a portion of Herman Melville's autobiographical narrative Omoo:[7]

"It was so excessively hot in this still, brooding valley, shut out from the Trades, and only open toward the leeward side of the island, that labor in the sun was out of the question. To use a hyperbolical phrase of Shorty's, 'It was 'ot enough to melt the nose h'off a brass monkey.'"

• An early recorded mentioning of the freezing a "brass monkey" dates from 1857, appearing in C.A. Abbey, Before the Mast, p. 108: "It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey".[8]
• The story "Henry Gardner" (10 April 1858) has "its blowing hard enough to blow the nose off a brass monkey".[9]
• The poem "Lines on a heavy prospector and his recent doings in the North-West" (20 June 1865) has "It would freeze off a brass monkey's nose"[10]
• The article "Echoes from England" (23 May 1868) has "that same east wind ... would shave the whiskers off a brass monkey"[11]
• The Story of Waitstill Baxter, by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1913) has "The little feller, now, is smart's a whip, an' could talk the tail off a brass monkey".[4]
• The Ivory Trail, by Talbot Mundy (1919) has "He has the gall of a brass monkey".[4]
• Brass Monkey, a 1948 British comedy thriller film starring Carroll Levis, Carole Landis and Herbert Lom.
• In Yogi Yorgesson's 1949 Christmas novelty parody song, "Yingle Bells", the last lyric says "I wouldn't make brass monkeys ride in a one-horse open sleigh".[12]
• An episode of the TV series M*A*S*H features a cold snap for the camp, during which Lt Col Henry Blake jokes "we better keep the brass monkeys in tonight."

Cunard

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The "brass monkey" is the nickname of the house flag of the Cunard Line, adopted in 1878, a lion rampant or on a field gules holding a globe.[13] The reference is almost certainly irreverent humour, rather than a source of the expression, of which variants predate it.

Beverage

edit Main article: Brass Monkey (cocktail)

A "brass monkey" is one of any number of citrus-flavored alcoholic drinks.[citation needed] In 1986, the hip hop band the Beastie Boys released a single called "Brass Monkey" from their album Licensed to Ill, although the song's lyrics are focused on the cocktail of the same name.

Inventions

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US Patent 4634021 (1987) describes:

A release mechanism is disclosed for releasing an object such as a ball from a body under the force of gravity. A bimetallic element obstructs or opens an opening in the body for retaining or releasing the object depending upon the temperature of the bimetallic element. The release mechanism may be incorporated into a novelty "brass monkey" for "emasculating" the monkey when the temperature decreases to a predetermined temperature at which the balls in the "brass monkey" are permitted to drop to a base which is designed to produce an audible sound when struck by the balls.[14]