Brass Tacks | Meaning & Examples
“Getting down to brass tacks” means avoiding unnecessary details and dealing with the fundamentals. The saying was first recorded in the 19th century in the US, and although there are a few suggestions about its origin, no one knows for sure where it came from originally.
Celina’s brass tacks approach to problems was refreshing after her predecessor’s overcomplicated tactics.
“Let’s get down to brass tacks,” the principal shareholder said. “Are we going to survive this crisis?”
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Brass tacks meaning
Sometimes, an idiom has a clear meaning in real life that leads to its idiomatic meaning (e.g., “hook, line, and sinker” has a clear meaning in the world of fishing). Other idioms, like brass tacks, have no clear or widely agreed origin.
You can use brass tacks in most circumstances except some very formal ones. It is widely understood and would need no explanation. It is usually used as a noun phrase in the expression “down to brass tacks,” and it is often used as an adverbial phrase (e.g., “a brass tacks approach”).
Dave Brailsford’s “marginal gains” philosophy in professional cycling was a brass tacks approach that led his team to three out of four Tour de France titles.
The manager’s message was clear: “Let’s get down to brass tacks. If we don’t improve productivity, we’ll never survive the challenge of cheap imports.”
Frequently asked questions about brass tacks
- Is it brass tacks or brass tax?
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The correct spelling of the idiom is brass tacks. Nobody really knows the origin of the phrase, but it means doing away with unnecessary things and focusing on the essentials.
It can be used in a variety of ways, including:
- The prime minister promised a return to brass tacks politics, focusing on the economy.
- “Let’s get down to brass tacks,” the coach said. “We need to score more points than the opposition.”
- Some staff welcomed the new brass tacks approach, while others saw it as nothing more than a gimmick.
To make sure you use this idiom correctly in your writing, try QuillBot’s Grammar Checker.
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Marshall, T. (2025, May 29). Brass Tacks | Meaning & Examples. Quillbot. Retrieved July 20, 2025, from https://quillbot.com/blog/idioms/brass-tacks/
