▪ I. brick, n.1
(brɪk)
Forms: 5 breke, (pl.) brikkes, 5–6 bryke, 6 brike, brikke, bryk, bryck(e, 6–7 bricke, 6– brick.
[Found only since the middle of the 15th c.; not in the Promptorium 1440, or Catholicon 1483: prob. a. F. brique, in OF. also briche; quoted by Godefroy 1264 (briche) and 1457 (brique) in sense of ‘a form of loaf’, and also in OF. in sense of ‘broken piece, fragment, bit’, and reinforcing a negative in sense ‘not a bit’. Still in Burgundian and Hainault dial., in sense ‘piece’, brique de pain ‘piece of bread’, in Swiss Romance ‘piece, bit, débris’, mod.Pr. briga ‘débris’. It would appear therefore that the OF. word was derived in some way from the Teutonic verb brek-an to break (cf. F. brèche, ONF. breke, breque breaking, breach), and that its original sense was ‘broken piece’, which passed through the general sense ‘piece, bit’, or the specific sense ‘piece of bread as baked, loaf’, to that of ‘piece of baked clay’. In French une brique, the shaped object, would thus be earlier than la brique, the substance; but in English the earliest examples yet found are of the substance.]
I. 1. A substance formed of clay, kneaded, moulded, and hardened by baking with fire, or in warm countries and ancient times by drying in the sun; used instead of stone as a building material.
| c 1440 [See brick wall n.1 1.] 1465 Mann. & Househ. Exp. 301, I did rekene wethe heme that makethe my breke. 1467 Ord. Worcester in Eng. Gilds (1870) 372 That no chimneys of tre..be suffred..but that the owners make hem of bryke or stone. 1535 Coverdale Gen. xi. 3 Come on, let vs make bryck & burne it. And they toke bryck for stone. c 1543 W. Cleve in Dom. Archit. III. 79 With closer of brike toured aboute your gardein. 1603 Shakes. Meas. for M. iv. i. 28 Garden circummur'd with Bricke. 1776 Gibbon Decl. & F. I. 44 Augustus was accustomed to boast that he had found his capital of brick, and that he had left it of marble. 1788 H. Walpole in Walpoliana xiv. 8 The ruin in Kew Gardens is built with act-of-parliament brick. 1846 M{supc}Culloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) I. 623 By far the greater number of houses in London..are built of brick. |
2. A block of this substance, or of sand and lime, concrete, and other materials, made of a definite size and shape, as an individual object; ordinarily rectangular, but also of other shapes for special purposes. (In 16th c. the
pl. was often
brick.)
| c 1525 Surv. Yorksh. Monast. in Yorkshire Archæol. Jrnl. (1886) IX. 329 A litle house..coueryd w{supt} tyle, w{supt} a chymney of brikkes. 1535 Coverdale Ex. v. 8 The nombre of the brycke which they made. 1611 Bible Gen. xi. 3 Goe to, let vs make bricke, and burne them thorowly. ― Ex. vi. 18 Yet shall ye deliuer the tale of brickes. 1651 Proc. Parl. No. 123. 1902 Our Landlords..have exacted the full taile of the Bricks, when the ground produced no straw. 1677 A. Yarranton Engl. Improv. 136 Six hundred thousand of Bricks builds a Granary, Two Brick and half thick. 1724 Ord. Tilers' & Brickl. Comp. in Lond. Gaz. No. 6251/3 Every Brick is to be 9 Inches in Length, 4 Inches and a Quarter of an Inch in Breadth, and 2 Inches and a Quarter of an Inch in Thickness. 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 345 Called Fire-Bricks, because of their enduring the fire. 1840 Marryat Olla Podr. (Rtldg.) 256 We cannot put on a heavy roof with a brick-and-a-half wall. 1850 Layard Nineveh xiii. 342 Squares which when dried by the heat of the sun served them for bricks. 1875, 1879 Slag-brick [see slag n.1 6 a]. 1922 D. M. Liddell Handbk. Chem. Engin. II. 948 At present bricks made from sand and lime are extensively used, while they have been used in Europe for 50 years. |
3. A loaf shaped like a brick. Often applied to a ‘tin-loaf’, but the local uses vary. [
Cf. the
OFr. and
Fr. dial. uses referred to above.]
| 1735 Byrom Rem. (1855) I. ii. 615 Breakfasted upon a penny brick and tea with sugar, and ate all the brick very near. 1822 W. Kitchiner Cook's Orac. App. 508 Put a quartern of Flour into a large Basin..knead it again, and it is ready either for Loaves or Bricks. 1857 E. Acton Eng. Bread-Bk. ii. iv. 184 The loaves technically called ‘bricks’, which are baked in tins. 1847–78 Halliwell, Brick, a kind of loaf. var. dial. 1875 Ure Dict. Arts I. 477 The loaves known under the names of bricks, Coburg, cottage, and French rolls, being all made of the same dough. |
4. transf. a. A brick-shaped block of any substance,
e.g. of tea (see
brick-tea in 10); of wood, for a child to play with; of ice-cream; also in other more consciously figurative uses.
box of bricks: a box of wooden blocks for a child to build with.
| 1827 H. E. Lloyd Timkowski's Trav. II. 315 A good horse was in our presence sold for about sixty bricks of tea. 1832 F. Trollope Dom. Manners Amer. I. xix. 301 A numerous collection of large wooden bricks. 1861 C. M. Yonge Young Step-Mother xxix. 434 He..built up a tower with her wooden bricks. 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6) I. xii. 358 In building up crystals these little atomic bricks often arrange themselves into layers. 1875 Ure Dict. Arts II. 507 Patent fuel..small coal and pitch, moulded together into bricks by pressure. 1884 Gilmour Mongols 143 Buyers..conspicuous from the clumsy bricks of tea which they carried. 1885 Stevenson Dynamiter 191 ‘You see this brick?’..lifting a cake of the infernal compound [dynamite] from the laboratory-table. 1922 S. Lewis Babbitt ix. 123 He gulped down a chill and glutinous slice of the ice-cream brick. 1938 R. W. Lawson tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) ix. 94 The α-particles..are not the ultimate bricks of which the nucleus is composed. 1939 L. MacNeice Autumn Jrnl. xix. 76 Baby Croesus crawls in a pen With alphabetical bricks. 1959 I. & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolch. ix. 165 Cornet, Brick, and Lollipop Taste very nice when bought from the shop. 1964 F. L. Westwater Electronic Computers iii. 49 Only a limited number of electronic ‘bricks’, as they are called, are used. These bricks, which are circuit elements, have been thoroughly tested beforehand. |
b. brick couching, in embroidery, couching in which the laid threads or cords are secured by cross stitches resembling, in their arrangement, the vertical joints of brickwork. Hence
in bricks, in divisions resembling bricks.
Cf. brick-stitch (sense 10 below).
| 1882 Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlew. 180/1 The chief varieties of Flat Couching are Brick, Broad, Burden, Diagonal, and Diamond. 1911 A. Dryden Church Embroid. 112 The commonest form of stitching the gold is in bricks, each couching-stitch being in between the two stitches of the preceding line. |
c. The colour of brick; brick-red.
| [1856 M. N. Thomson Elephant Club 163 A [red] head of hair which the youth of America are accustomed to designate as a ‘brick-top’.] 1897 Sears, Roebuck Catal. 21/3 Send for illustrated color card..Pink—Milwaukee Brick—Quaker Drab. [1912 Dialect Notes III. 572 Brick-topped, red-headed.] 1922 Joyce Ulysses 48 A dull brick muffler strangling his unshaven neck. 1923 Daily Mail 16 Jan. 1 Blanket Cloth Magyar Wrap Coats... Cream, Beaver, Mole, Nigger, Brick. |
5. a. Phrase
like bricks,
like a brick: with a vengeance, vigorously, with good will: occasionally with a clear reference to the crash with which a quantity of bricks fall, but usually only as an expression of eulogy, as in sense 6. Also (
orig. U.S.),
like a thousand (occas. hundred) of brick(s);
like a ton of bricks: see
come v. 56 g.
| 1836 Dickens Sk. by Boz, Lost Cab-driver, Out flies the fare like bricks. 1836 Hill Yankee Stories 32 (Weingarten Suppl. Notes to D.A.E.), If I don't be into him with a thousand of brick. 1840 ‘Samuel Slick’ Clockmaker Ser. iii. 50 If I don't pitch into Ben Parsons' ribs like a tousand of bricks. 1841 Picayune (New Orleans) 16 Mar. 2/2 They..rounded the first turn pretty much in a heap like a thousand of brick. 1853 E. Forbes Let. in Geikie Life xiv. 509 Gibbs has worked like a brick. 1856 Kingsley Let. May, You fellows worked like bricks. 1856 F. Paget Owlet Owlst. 139 She sits her horse as if she was part of him..hunts like..a brick. 1860 Picayune 27 Apr. (De Vere), He fell upon us like a thousand of bricks. 1886 R. Brown Spunyarn & Spindrift vii. 123 The people at the Admiralty will be down on you like a hundred of bricks. 1896 C. James Yoke of Freedom 161 Once let a man play me false, I'm down on him like a hundred of bricks. 1911 A. Bennett Hilda Lessways iii. ii. 226, I had the whole gang down on me instantly like a thousand of bricks. 1929 W. S. Maugham Writer's Notebk. (1949) 228 I'd have had the whole community down on me like a ton o' bricks. 1967 E. Grierson Crime of one's Own xii. 98 The..gentleman..made his living by selling books, and not those sort of books either, or the Super would have been down on the place long since like a ton of bricks. |
b. Slang
phr. (
orig. U.S.),
to have (or wear) a brick in one's hat: to be under the influence of liquor.
| 1847 Knickerbocker XXIX. 569 A youth who came home one night..having ‘a brick in his hat’. 1848 Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects 61 He wore a ‘brick’ within that hat. 1849 [see hat n. 5 c]. 1889 Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang I. 180/1 Brick in the hat (common), intoxicated, top-heavy. |
c. to drop a brick: to commit a verbal indiscretion, make a ‘bloomer’.
colloq.| 1923 Punch 3 Oct. 334 It was hinted to me pretty plainly that I had dropped a brick, as you say. 1924 Galsworthy White Monkey iii. xii, I've got to keep my head shut, or I shall be dropping a brick. 1928 ‘Sapper’ Female of Species xvii. 307 The stones of Stonehenge are little pebbles compared to the bricks you dropped, but I forgive you. |
6. fig. (
slang or
colloq.) A good fellow, one whom one approves for his genuine good qualities.
| 1840 Barham Ingol. Leg., Bros. Birchington xiii, I don't stick to declare Father Dick..was a Regular Brick. 1857 Hughes Tom Brown vii. (1871) 151 What a brick not to give us even twenty lines to learn. 1864 C. M. Yonge C'tess Kate xii. (ed. 2) 213 ‘She's run away, like a jolly brick!’ 1870 M. Bridgman R. Lynne I. xviii. 318 She believed Robert was no end of a brick. |
7. ‘Bricks, or Briques, in
Heraldry, are figures or bearings in arms, resembling a building of bricks’ (Chambers
Cycl. Supp. 1753).
II. attrib. and
Comb. 8. simple attrib. or adj. a. Of brick. Similarly
brick-and-mortar, etc.: see also
mortar n.2 a (
quots. 1863 and 1895).
b. In the shape of a brick.
| c 1440 [See brick wall n.1 1.] 1591 Spenser Bellay's Vis. ii, Nor brick nor marble was the wall. 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. (1703) 129 Stone, or Brick Houses. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v. Brick, Some also mention brick-tin, a sort of tin in that shape brought from Germany; and brick-soap, made in oblong pieces. 1851 Helps Friends in C. I. 4 Red brick houses, with poplars coming up amongst them. 1865 M. Arnold Ess. Crit. iv. 138 Margate, that brick-and-mortar image of English Protestantism. 1884 Littell's Living Age CLXI. 88 A..brick-and-stone erection. |
9. General comb.:
a. attrib., as
brick-cart,
brick-clamp,
brick-colour,
brick-furnace,
brick-machine,
brick-mason,
brick-mould,
brick-pit,
brick-stack,
brick-trowel,
brick-truck.
b. objective, as
brick-moulder.
c. instrumental or parasynthetic, forming
adjs., as
brick-bound,
brick-built,
brick-coloured,
brick-floored,
brick-fronted,
brick-hemmed,
brick-paved,
brick-walled; also
brick-building vbl. n.| 1881 J. Hawthorne Fort. Fool i. xviii, The trim and *brick-bound conventionality of the London mansion. |
| 1631 Weever Anc. Fun. Mon. 230 All the *bricke-building was done at his charges. |
| a 1845 Hood Turtles iv, Before a lofty *brick-built pile Sir Peter stopp'd. |
| 1663 Gerbier Counsel 46 He must not suffer *Brick-carts to overturne the load of Bricks. |
| 1598 Florio Worlde of Wordes 149/2 Gioggiolino, a kinde of colour which we call flesh-colour, or *brickcolour. 1818 W. Tucker Fam. Dyer & Scourer (ed. 2) 53 To make a Brown inclining to a Brick Colour. |
| 1708 Lond. Gaz. No. 4416/4 [He] had on a *Brick-colour'd Coat. |
| 1898 M. A. von Arnim Eliz. & German Garden 10, I used to..go..slowly across the *brick-floored hall. |
| 1605 Leverton (Lincoln) Ch.-Wardens Acc. (MS.) 84 b, Pd. to Thoms. Jenkinson *brickmayson for vj daies whitteninge of the Churche..vijs. |
| 1858 Glenny Gard. Every-day Bk. 251 Whatever there is no room for in the Greenhouse must be consigned to the *brick-pits. |
| 1899 Westm. Gaz. 7 Jan. 5/1 A *brick-stack, 60 ft. in height, fell, crashing on to the sheds. 1915 Times 15 Apr. 4/1 A severe bombardment of the ‘brickstacks’ and the enemy's trenches. |
| 1677 Moxon Mech. Exerc. (1703) 245 A *Brick Trowel. 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 384 The Brick-trowel is used for spreading mortar, and likewise for cutting bricks. |
| 1647 R. Stapylton Juvenal 184 *Brick-wall'd Babilon. |
10. Special comb.:
brick-ax(e, a double-headed axe with chisel-shaped blades, used by bricklayers;
brick-barred a., inlaid (as a floor) with rows of bricks;
brick-box, a ‘box of bricks’ (see 4);
brick-bread (
cf. brick-loaf);
brick-burner, one who attends to a brick-kiln, a brick-maker;
brick-clay, clay for making bricks; in
Geol. a fine species of clay found lying upon boulder-clay;
brick-dryer, an oven for drying bricks before burning;
brick-end, a broken piece or fragment of brick;
brick-loaf, a loaf shaped like a rectangular brick (see 3);
brick-nog,
-nogging, a method of building in which a timber framework is filled in with brickwork;
brick-oil, an old drug compounded of powdered brick and linseed oil;
brick-on-edge a., designating a construction built of bricks laid on their sides;
brick-pond U.S., a pond in a brickfield;
brick-press, a machine for pressing and consolidating the moulded clay;
brick-stitch = brick couching (see 4 b above);
† brickstone, a brick;
brick-tea, tea leaves pressed into the shape of a small brick, in which form it is imported into Russia, and also used as a medium of exchange in Mongolia;
brick-trimmer, an arch or ‘trimmer’ of brickwork for receiving the hearth of a fire-place;
brickyard, a place where bricks are made, a brickfield. Also brickfield, -kiln, -layer, etc.
| 1548–62 Norfolk Antiq. Misc. (1880) II. 10 A *brykaxe, a hamerax, a trowell, and a pykax. 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 389 The Brick-axe is used for..cutting off the soffits of bricks. |
| 1885 (title) First lessons in arithmetic, by means of *brick-box. |
| 1762 Boston Selectmen's Minutes (1887) 29 Nov., A 4d. loaf of *brick bread is 3 oz. less than a 4d. white loaf. |
| c 1500 Cocke Lorelles B. (1843) 10 Bewardes, *brycke borners, and canel rakers. 1703 Art's Improv. p. xiv, Statute Laws yet in force, for the regulating of the Trades of Brick-Burners, etc. |
| 1837 Penny Cycl. VII. 245/2 *Brick clay..lies in abundance upon the London clay. 1868 B. J. Lossing Hudson 206 Its banks yield some of the finest brick-clay in the country. |
| 1527 MS. Acc. S. John's Hosp., Canterb., A lode of *brykendis xiiijd. 1858 Chamb. Jrnl. IX. 147 Enthroned on brick ends and pieces of stone. |
| 1723 J. Nott Cook's & Confectioner's Dict. No. 7 E, 'Till you have made it in the form of a *Brick-loaf. 1873 Mrs. Whitney Other Girls iii. (1876) 30 A brick loaf..always seemed to me a man's perversion of the idea of bread. |
| 1825 Cobbett Rur. Rides 86 The labourers' dwellings..are made of what they call *brick-nog. 1857 Turner Dom. Archit. III. ii. vii. 278 An old house of timber and brick-nogging. |
| 1875 Ure Dict. Arts I. 533 *Brick oil..is a relic of old pharmacy. |
| 1851 B'ham & Midl. Gardeners' Mag. Dec. 220, I should recommend a *brick-on-edge wall being run up. |
| 1811 Massachusetts Spy 9 Jan. 3/3 Two boys..were..drowned in a *brick pond in the vicinity of the city [sc. Philadelphia]. 1894 Naturalist Feb. 56 Myriophyllum alterniflorum. Blythe Nook brickponds. |
| 1872 A. Mercier Our Mother Church xvi. 348 The edge is done in ‘*brick’ stitch, which can be easily worked by looking at the pattern. 1882 Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlework s.v., Brick stitch was largely used as backgrounds in ancient embroideries. 1960 B. L. Snook English Hist. Embroidery 32 Split stitch was still used..accompanied by laid-work, couching, brick stitch, satin stitch and long and short stitch. |
| 1560 Whitehorne Certayne Wayes (1573) 44 a, Taking it out, you shal see it made like unto a *bricke⁓stone. |
| 1827 H. E. Lloyd Timkowski's Trav. I. 36 The dry, dirty, and damaged leaves and stalks of the tea are..mixed with a glutinous substance, pressed into moulds, and dried in ovens. These blocks are called..on account of their shape, *brick tea. 1852 Sinnett tr. Huc's Journ. Tartary 18 To boil some Mongol tea—the well-known brick tea, boiled with salt. 1872 Oliver Elem. Bot. ii. 147 ‘Brick Tea’, used in Central Asia, is made from common kinds and refuse, mixed with bullock's blood, pressed and dried in moulds. |
| 1864 Leeds Mercury 20 Sept., He went to work at a *brick yard. 1884 Pall Mall G. 8 Apr. 11/2 He has succeeded in emancipating..little brickyard children from a regular Egyptian bondage. |
▸
slang.
built like a brick shithouse n. and variants.
a. orig. U.S. Chiefly of a man: having an extremely solid physique; with a very robust and powerful build. In
Brit. use,
derogatory when used of a woman.
Occas. (in senses 4a and 4b) abbreviated to
brick shithouse, etc., denoting a person of this build.In earlier use a number of different buildings are used in analogy. Later, once the form
brick shithouse became standard, variants are usually euphemistic.
| [1903 A. H. Lewis Boss xiv. 183 That'll be enough to give us th'Tammany bunch as solid as a brick switch shanty.] 1922 J. Tully Emmett Lawler 286 Every time I fight him my hands are swollen for a week. He's built like a brick schoolhouse. 1936 J. Tully Bruiser 58 He's built like a brick barn. 1949 E. Birney Turvey 127 Built like brick shathouses they was too. 1954 L. Armstrong Satchmo viii. 126 He was a short, jet-black guy, built like a brick house. 1991 J. Phillips You'll never eat Lunch in this Town Again 269 The driver is a hostile brick shithouse who favors flannel and does not understand the vicissitudes of a woman producing a movie with her daughter and her daughter's nanny in tow. 2001 Sports Illustr. 15 Jan. 77/2 ‘I got this one: six-foot-seven and built like a brick s—house.’ He hooks a thumb at his towering 17-year-old son. |
b. U.S. Also
freq. in form
built like a brick house. Of a woman: having a curvaceous figure,
esp. slim with large, prominent breasts. Also of a woman's figure.
| 1933 J. Conroy Disinherited ii. 91 Wilma's a baby doll, build like a brick outhouse. 1964 R. F. Mirvish There you Are 222 The Sicilian babe... Small, stacked like a brick shithouse. 1981 Washington Post (Nexis) 29 June b1 Some of the Silver Slipper's patrons wondered what on earth machines could construct that would be an improvement over women who were built like ‘brick houses’, as one patron described them, live and on stage, with and without g-strings, sequins and feather boas. 1999 New Eng. Rev. Spring 139 Detective Flynn..has trouble concentrating on anything besides Goity's sumptuous bust... Built like a brick shithouse, he thinks, becoming momentarily aware of his carotid artery thrumming against his shirt collar. |
▸
brick house n.shortened
U.S. slang a woman with a curvaceous figure,
esp. slim with large, prominent breasts.
| 1977 L. Richie et al. Brick House (song, perf. ‘The Commodores’) 1 That lady's stacked and that's a fact... Thirty six, twenty four, thirty six Oh, what a winning hand, 'cause she's a *brick house. 1992 Classic Images Dec. 25 (advt.) A brickhouse sex kitten makes the move on everyone from young studs to old men. 2001 Rolling Stone 24 May 58/4 ‘There's a lot of days that I wake up, and I hate how I look.’.. ‘Oh, hush, Beyoncé,’ says Kelly. ‘She a brick house.’ |
▪ II. † brick, n.2 Obs. ‘The name of a sort of lamprey{ddd}distinguished{ddd}by having a number of black transverse spots, very narrow and long’ (Chambers
Cycl. Supp. 1753).
▪ III. brick, v. (
brɪk)
[f. brick n.1] Mostly in comb. with advbs.
1. to brick up: to build or close up with brickwork.
| 1648 Bury Wills (1850) 211, I desire that the passage into the vault be bricked and filled up. 1691 Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) II. 259 Orders for bricking up their little gate leading into Whitefryers. 1794 Burke Imp. W. Hastings Wks. XV. 414 Very great sums of money are bricked up and kept in vaults. 1868 E. Edwards Ralegh I. i. 9 They have bricked up the lower part of the..window. |
2. to brick over: to cover with brick.
| a 1845 Hood Town & Count. xiv, See Hatton's Gardens bricked all o'er. 1863 Browning Bp. orders Tomb, Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine. |
3. To line, face, or pave with brick; to imitate brickwork on a plaster surface by lining and colouring.
| 1825 Mrs. Sherwood Old Times ii. in Houlston Tracts I. xxiv. 7 They are now bricked in the front. 1830 D'Israeli Chas. I, III. vi. 107 The decent appearance of bricking their [house] fronts. |
4. intr. To work with (load, make, etc.) bricks.
| 1884 Pall Mall G. 10 Sept. 7/2 Another man..was bricking at a vessel close by. |
5. U.S. slang. (See
quot.)
| 1863 Daily Tel. Aug. (Amer. Corresp.) Another favourite punishment..was that of ‘bricking’, which was done by bringing the knees close up to the chin and lashing the arms tightly to the knees. |