Brass monkeys

Origin

Imagine a frigid deck of a 19th-century warship, where cannonballs were meticulously stacked on a brass tray or rack—colloquially known as a 'monkey.' Brass, unlike iron, contracts significantly in extreme cold. On bitterly freezing days, the legend goes, the brass 'monkey' would shrink enough to lose its grip on the iron cannonballs, causing them to tumble onto the deck. This vivid, if likely apocryphal, image of cannonballs literally being 'frozen off' the brass fixture painted a picture of unbearable cold, forever linking the phrase to the most extreme winter conditions encountered at sea.