☼ Concept Map

''brash'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''brash'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260605232103-00-⌔

brash - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

brash (comparativebrasher or more brash, superlativebrashest or most brash)

  • (of people or behaviour) Overly bold or self-assertive to the point of being insensitive, tactless or impudent; shameless.
    • ✤ Synonyms: audacious, brassy, brazen, cocky, undiplomatic
    • ✤ a brash young businessman; a brash tabloid; a brash sense of humour
    • ✤ Mrs. Mayfield looked away, and the girl stricken with remorse, hastened to her and said: “There, I have been too brash, haven’t I? You must forgive me for I didn’t intend to be brash.”
      “Brash, my dear? What do you mean by that?”
      She laughed. “Why, I thought everybody know’d what brash meant. Well, it’s er—too quick to say somethin’ you oughtn’t to say.”      1
    • ✤ Trouble with Silzer is, he’s too brash —shoots off his mouth too much—likes to hear himself talk.2
    • ✤ The American’s brash unconcern for nuance indicates a young and vigorous country, the Briton’s clipped speech an ancient, proverbial reserve.3
    • ✤ Edusco liked him, he could tell; he imagined Edusco talking about him in a gathering of other self-made Igbo men, men who were brash and striving, who juggled huge businesses and supported vast extended families.4
  • (of actions) Overly bold, impetuous or rash.
    • ✤ Synonyms: foolhardy, reckless
    • ✤ […] just because you’re a little hot under the collar, don’t do anything brash, for fear you may regret it afterward.5
    • ✤ Now, Mr. Reed, you’ve committed nothing but a brash act of bad taste by bypassing the standard channels.6
  • (of things) Bold, bright or showy, often in a tasteless way.
    • ✤ Synonyms: flashy, garish, loud, splashy; see also Thesaurus: gaudy
    • ✤ * brash colours*
    • ✤ a brash perfume
    • ✤ There are scores of brash and noisy bars along Lockhart Street and in Wanchai and North Point (on the island) and throughout the back lanes of Kowloon […]7
    • ✤ The driveway is filled with vehicles parked bumper to bumper and the house is lit up like I’ve never seen it before, brash yellow light streaming from every window on every floor, and the tinny, nasal sound of gramophone jazz trumpeting inside.8
    • ✤ *Squidward: How about this one? I call it, *Bold and Brash .9
    • ✤ Sadly, by the 1970s the arcade had gone downmarket with brash shop fronts and cheap shops, some of doubtful reputation.10
  • ✤ Art Curator: More like, belongs in the trash!

Noun

brash (countable and uncountable, plural brashes)

  • A rash or eruption; a sudden or transient fit of sickness.
  • A sudden burst of rain.
  • (obsolete) An attack or assault.

Verb

brash (third-person singular simple present brashes, present participle brashing, simple past and past participle brashed)

  • (transitive, obsolete) To disturb.

Adjective

brash (comparativebrasher or more brash, superlativebrashest or most brash)

  • (US, colloquial, dated) Brittle (said e.g. of wood or vegetables).
    • ✤ Hickory axles […] all cut from tough butt logs. Brash timber is excluded.11
    • ✤ * Brash wood, when tested in bending, breaks with a short, sharp fracture instead of developing a splintering failure and absorbs a comparatively small amount of work between the elastic limit and final failure*12
    • ✤ […] brash timber, which is liable to snap; […]13

Noun

brash (countable and uncountable, plural brashes)

  • Leaf litter of small leaves and little twigs as found under a hedge.
  • (geology) Broken and angular rock fragments underlying alluvial deposits.
    • ✤ Alluvium differs from the rubble or brash, just described, as being composed of sand and gravel, more or less rolled14
  • Broken fragments of ice.
    • ✤ The sea dashed in an angry surf over its inclined sides, rattling the icy fragments or “brash” against its irregular surface15

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈbɹæʃ/, [ˈbɹʷæʃ]
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -æʃ
  • Hyphenation: brash

Etymology 1

Uncertain. Perhaps from Scots brash, brasch (“a violent onset; an attack or assault”). Perhaps also related to Dutch bars (“stern; strict”), German barsch (“harsh; unfriendly”), Danish barsk (“harsh; rough; tough”), Swedish barsk (“harsh; impetuous”).

Etymology 2

Compare American English bresk, brusk (“fragile, brittle”).

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1902, Opie Read, The Starbucks ‎, Chicago: Laird & Lee, Chapter, page 210: ↩

  2. 1925, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 17, in Arrowsmith ‎: ↩

  3. 1958, Peter De Vries, chapter 14, in Mackerel Plaza, Penguin, published 1986, page 209: ↩

  4. 2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, chapter 54, in Americanah, New York: Knopf: ↩

  5. 1905, Andy Adams, chapter 2, in The Outlet ‎, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, page 22: ↩

  6. 1960 April, George O. Smith, “The Troublemakers”, in Galaxy Science Fiction, volume 18, number 4, page 156: ↩

  7. 1963, Ian Fleming, Thrilling Cities, London: Jonathan Cape, Chapter 1, “Hong Kong,” ↩

  8. 1996, Guy Vanderhaeghe, chapter 24, in The Englishman’s Boy ‎, New York: Picador, published 1998, page 243: ↩

  9. 2001, Walt Dohrn et al. “Artist Unknown”, SpongeBob SquarePants, season 2, episode 18b, Nickelodeon ↩

  10. 2021 December 15, Robin Leleux, “Awards honour the best restoration projects: The Great Western Railway Craft Skills Award: Victoria Arcade”, in RAIL, number 946, page 59: ↩

  11. 1886, The Lumberman’s Hand Book, page 24: ↩

  12. 1919, Forest Products Laboratory, Wood in Aircraft Construction: ↩

  13. 2000, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Précis of the Lectures on Architecture (page 94) ↩

  14. 1839, Sir Charles Lyell, Elements of Geology: ↩

  15. 1853, Elisha Kent Kane, The U. S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •