Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US/Aus.) of temperature, extremely cold, occas. hot (see cite 1847); not ad hoc variations plus fig. uses.

1832		Atkinson’s Casket (Phila., PA) 7 96/1: ’Twas cold enough to make a Russian shiver.
1843		Noons Lick Times (Fayette, MO) 25 Mar. 2/5: Last night was cold enough ‘to freeze a brass monkey’s tail off’.
1847		Port Phillip Gaz. (Vic.) 17 Nov. 2/7: On Monday, the good folks of Melbourne suffered dreadfully from the effects of a hot wind, which to use an expression of an ‘old hand’, was ‘sufficient to melt the nose off a brass monkey.’.
1859		H. Kingsley Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 24: Whew! it’s cold enough to freeze the tail off a tin possum; and this infernal rubbish won’t burn, at least not to warm a man.
1865		Montana Post (Virgina City, MT) 18 Nov. 4/1: One of the party [...] observed that ‘It was cold enough to freeze the tail of a brass monkey’.
1879		in J. Parker Old Army (1929) 120: It was ‘cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey’.
1882		Daily Globe (St Paul, MN) 12 Mar. 3/3: By the time all the seas was drfied up the earth ’ud be cold enough to freeze a brass monkey.
1886		Daily Morn. Astorian (Astoria, OR) 20 Jan. 3/1: The wind is blowing from the east cold enough the freeze the nose off a brass monkey.
1893		Witchita Daily Eagle (KS) 9 July 11/2: I was in a fort [...] where it was cold enough the freeze a brass monkey.
1900		Florida Star (Titusville, FL) 1 June 6/1: The South African winter [...] can be cold enough to ‘freeze the tail off a brass monkey’.
1905		Sporting Times 28 Jan. 1/4: St. Petersburg is a bit too cold even for brass monkeys.
1910		Beaver Herald (OK) 17 Feb. 1/3: We were visited by a raging blizzard all day. Cold enough to freeze the hair off a ‘brass monkey’.
1910		Salt Lake Trib. (UT) 18 Sept. 21/7: In winter [...] there are temperatures that would breeze the nose off any ‘brass monkey’.
1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 270: It’s enough to freeze the ears orf a brass monkey!
1916		R. Service ‘The Black Dudeen’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 138: And cold! A monkey of brass would freeze.
1920		C. Sandburg letter 3 Jan. in Mitgang (1968) 175: A glad and mucking Icelander who has an honest-to-God pride he came from a climate that would freeze the nose off a brass monkey.
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 466: Cold (It’s) Enough to Make a Jew Drop his Bundle. It’s very cold.
1927		Nichols & Tully Twenty Below Act I: What a night! It’d freeze the tail off a brass monkey.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘Me and a Spade’ in Billy Bennett’s Fifth Budget 12: Out on the snow it was fifty below / And would give a brass monkey the croup.
1939		P.G. Brewster ‘Folk “Sayings” From Indiana’ in AS XIV:4 263: ‘Cold as a dog’s nose,’ and ‘cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey’.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 88: Of additional similes peculiarly our own, the following are among the best: [...] cold enough to freeze the tail (nose, etc.) off a brass monkey, extremely cold.
1952		W.D. Overholser Fabulous Gunman 89: Cold enough to freeze the brass monkey.
1954		A. Petry Narrows 86: Some nights it was cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 21: Snappy enough to freeze the plumbing off a brass elephant.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 52: Cold enough ter freeze ’em orf a brass monkey, an’ no place ter sleep.
1961		Democrat & Chron. (Rochester, NY) 6 Feb. 11/1: A cold spell snappy enough to freeze the toes of a marble lion.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 58: It’s cold enough to blow the balls off a brass monkey.
1974		(con. 1940s) I. Agnew Loner 123: This place would freeze the balls off a brass monkey!
1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 30: Other sayings for nippy weather are [...] ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’.
1985		J. Morrison Share House Blues 126: Cold weather in July. ‘Freeze the balls off a brass monkey,’ says Gerontius.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 92: [The weather] may be described as being as cold as hell, as cold as a witch’s tit, or cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
1991		B. Quinn Smokey Hollow 149: It [the water] would in fact freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
1998		R.G. Barrett Goodoo Goodoo 15: It looks cold enough to freeze the balls off an Eskimo’s pool table.