English

Noun

brasser ‎(plural brassers)

1. (Cork, slang) prostitute^[1][2][3]
   • 1987, Roddy Doyle, The Commitments, King Farouk, Dublin:

     1. The brassers, yeh know wha' I mean. The gee. Is tha' why?

     2. Yeh know the way they're The Byrds an' Bird is another name for a girl, righ'? —Couldn't we be The Brassers? It was a great name.

   • 1991, Roddy Doyle, The Van, Secker & Warburg (ISBN 0-436-20052-X):

     Don't misunderstand me, compadre, he said. Not just women. All men are brassers as well.

   • 2005, Raymond Hickey, Dublin English: evolution and change, John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 138:

     Among the devices in the word formation morphology of Dublin English the most striking and productive must be the addition of -er /-ər/ (more rarely -ers) to stems...Examples: ...brasser 'prostitute, shameless female'...

   • 2006, Benjamin Black, Christine Falls, Picador, page 174:

     "Oh, and all the brassers knew Dolly Moran," he said. Quirke nodded. Brassers were whores, he assumed, but how? Brass nails, rhyming with tails, or was it something to do with screws?

   • 2011, Tony Black, Paying For It, page 167:

     "Sex workers? Jesus, even the brassers have gone PC," I said to the screen.

References

1. ↑ Christine Falls p. 174, by Benjamin Black. Picador, 2006. ISBN 978-0-312-42632-3.
2. ↑ Dublin English: evolution and change p. 138, by Raymond Hickey. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005. ISBN 90-272-4895-8.
3. ↑ The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English p. 257, Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor. Routledge, 2006. ISBN 0-415-25937-1.

French

Etymology

From Old French bracier, from brace ‎(“malt”), from Gaulish bracem (Pliny) (compare Scottish Gaelic braich, Welsh brag), from Proto-Indo-European *mr̥ke/o, *morko (compare Latin marcēre ‎(“to wither, droop”), North Frisian marig ‎(“tallow”), Lithuanian mer̃kti ‎(“to soak”), Ossetian marg ‎(“poison”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bʁa.se/

Verb

brasser

1. to brew (beer)
2. (culture) to intermingle

Conjugation

Derived terms

• brasserie
• brasseur
• brassicole