Brass monkey (colloquialism)

The Brass Monkey of Stanthorpe, Queensland, a place known for its "brass monkey weather", complete with a set of balls

"Cold enough to freeze the balls off (or on) a brass monkey" (also "brass monkey weather"[1]) is a colloquial expression used by some English speakers to describe extremely cold weather.

The reference to the testes (as the term balls is commonly understood to mean) of the brass monkey appears to be a 20th-century variant on the expression, prefigured by a range of references to other body parts, especially the nose and tail.

  1. ^ Beale, Peter; Partridge, Eric, eds. (2017). Shorter Slang Dictionary. London: Routledge. p. 27. ISBN 978-1138164796.