# What does ‘get down to brass tacks’ mean?

To “get down to brass tacks” means to get to the essential facts. A 19th-century American idiom of uncertain origin; not in Brewer's 1898.

## What it means

- A 19th-century American idiom of uncertain origin; not in Brewer's 1898.

## Action steps

1. Common signal to stop preliminaries.
2. Example: Enough small talk — let's get down to brass tacks.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/brewers-dictionary-of-phrase-and-fable)

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Published: 2026-07-18T04:16:36.403918+00:00
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