brasser

English

Alternative forms

• brazzer

Etymology

From Cockney rhyming slang brass nail, or its reduced form brass, with the same meaning.

Pronunciation

• (Ireland) enPR: brăzər IPA^(key): /ˈbɹæzəɹ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

brasser (plural brassers)

1. (Ireland, slang) Prostitute.
   • 1987, Roddy Doyle, The Commitments, Dublin: King Farouk:

     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:

     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.

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 марг (marg, “poison”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bʁa.se/
• Homophones: brassai, brassé, brassée, brassées, brassés, brassez

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

brasser

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

Conjugation

Conjugation of brasser (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	brasser
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	brassant /bʁa.sɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		brassé /bʁa.se/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	brasse /bʁas/	brasses /bʁas/	brasse /bʁas/	brassons /bʁa.sɔ̃/	brassez /bʁa.se/	brassent /bʁas/
	imperfect	brassais /bʁa.sɛ/	brassais /bʁa.sɛ/	brassait /bʁa.sɛ/	brassions /bʁa.sjɔ̃/	brassiez /bʁa.sje/	brassaient /bʁa.sɛ/
	past historic2	brassai /bʁa.se/	brassas /bʁa.sa/	brassa /bʁa.sa/	brassâmes /bʁa.sam/	brassâtes /bʁa.sat/	brassèrent /bʁa.sɛʁ/
	future	brasserai /bʁa.sʁe/	brasseras /bʁa.sʁa/	brassera /bʁa.sʁa/	brasserons /bʁa.sʁɔ̃/	brasserez /bʁa.sʁe/	brasseront /bʁa.sʁɔ̃/
	conditional	brasserais /bʁa.sʁɛ/	brasserais /bʁa.sʁɛ/	brasserait /bʁa.sʁɛ/	brasserions /bʁa.sə.ʁjɔ̃/	brasseriez /bʁa.sə.ʁje/	brasseraient /bʁa.sʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	brasse /bʁas/	brasses /bʁas/	brasse /bʁas/	brassions /bʁa.sjɔ̃/	brassiez /bʁa.sje/	brassent /bʁas/
	imperfect2	brassasse /bʁa.sas/	brassasses /bʁa.sas/	brassât /bʁa.sa/	brassassions /bʁa.sa.sjɔ̃/	brassassiez /bʁa.sa.sje/	brassassent /bʁa.sas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	brasse /bʁas/	—	brassons /bʁa.sɔ̃/	brassez /bʁa.se/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Derived terms

• brasserie
• brasseur
• brassicole

Further reading

• “brasser”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.