brass neck
"brass-neck" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“brass neck” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Gall, shamelessness, cheek.
Corpus desk
Index EN-brass-neck · brass neck · English
brass neck · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | brass neck |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “brass neck” in English
Rare enough to double-check
brass neck is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
brass neck has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From stick one's neck out. The correct English form is brass neck, spelled B-R-A-S-S- -N-E-C-K.
Definition
- 1Gall, shamelessness, cheek.
- 2A person with gall.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how brass neck appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
This year's commemorations of the start of World War One are a stark reminder of the sacrifices politicians make with other people's lives – except nowadays they'll do so wearing a Help for Heroes t-shirt (almost entirely covering their brass necks). When it comes to the hypocritical lauding of the armed forces while simultaneously shafting them, no one d…
That’s why it’s particularly outrageous for the government to sneak out its rubbish “blueprint” for cycling and walking on Easter Sunday, and having the brass neck to try to spin its laughably small investment in cycling and walking as a genuine attempt to make them people’s choice for shorter journeys and to reduce the rate of cyclists killed or seriousl…
Etymology
From stick one's neck out.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.