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brick
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
brick
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a brick/stone/wooden building
▪ The farmhouse is a long stone building about a century old.
brick red
came down on...like a ton of bricks (=very severely)
▪ I made the mistake of answering back, and she came down on me like a ton of bricks.
stone/brick/concrete wall
▪ The estate is surrounded by high stone walls.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
high
▪ It had tiny windows like a prison, and a high brick wall all round it.
▪ From behind high brick walls, you can hear bubbling fountains.
▪ The whole playground was surrounded by a four foot high brick wall with buttresses at about every ten feet.
▪ There was a high brick wall around it.
▪ The interior is in simple, brick design with high vaults and brick piers and marble columns.
▪ This bridge was a high brick arch viaduct, well clear of the tramway.
▪ The garden was cut off from its neighbour by a high red brick wall.
hot
▪ She was used to draughty spaces, soaring walls, a nightly ritual of wraps and hot bricks in winter.
▪ If Kirov chose, he could drop Vologsky, and Operation Cuckoo, like a hot brick.
large
▪ The Rotonda is a large, simple brick structure, built in 1695 as a cemetery for the dead of Ospedale Maggiore.
▪ This was a large mock-classical brick building, with columns and pediments.
▪ It has large brick works, engineering works and freezing factories.
▪ One mile to the south of the village lies Sand Hall, a large brick building erected in 1774.
▪ Weather conditions being favourable, the committee ordered the making of a large quantity of bricks.
▪ The Fu family's house is large, with brick walls, electricity and a black-and-white television.
▪ The children began to sort large rectangular bricks into one pile.
▪ A large, brick building, it has a tall nave, choir and transepts and apsidal choir termination.
old
▪ If fire brick is not available to the forge builder, old red brick will do.
▪ The old brick walls; small windows; half dark.
▪ Next door was an old brick garage, which I converted into a cottage for my Nan.
▪ I had lost her face and I felt my own features fall apart like an old brick hotel in a Frisco earthquake.
▪ The small untidy garden at the back of Merrill's flat faced south, trapping the warmth between its old brick walls.
▪ Despite the problems, old brick rowhouses are not inherently dangerous.
▪ The old bricks were still scattered over the foreshore.
red
▪ The two-storey, nineteenth-century Gothic, red brick building is currently buried in undergrowth.
▪ As they leaned against a red brick wall, a portly prison system official swabbed at the sweat trickling into his collar.
▪ The rectory was a dour red brick house with ivy-clad walls where birds would soon be nesting.
▪ I clipped an advertisement from Life showing a little girl looking out of a single apartment window set in red brick.
▪ The complex includes offices, stables and other ancillary buildings of red brick.
▪ He and Maurine built a one-bedroom red brick bungalow in the yard where Hayes had kept mules as a boy.
▪ These extensions were all done in red brick to fit in with the original structure.
solid
▪ It was brick, solid brick.
▪ In their place a solid row of brick facades pressed the old building tightly on each side.
▪ The tower was about 10 metres high and had solid masonry of brick and stone about 2 metres thick.
▪ On top of this was a solid brick monument with an upright stone.
▪ Before 1930 most houses were built with solid brick walls.
▪ Buy the correct length to go through handrail and plaster and into solid brick, block or stone behind.
yellow
▪ Black, yellow and white bricks were introduced to give a pattern, as were also small quantities of other materials.
▪ Dorothy helped him over the fence, and they started along the path of yellow brick for the Emerald City.
▪ The factory is a three-storey building of yellow brick.
▪ She bade her friends good-bye, and again started along the road of yellow brick.
▪ But the mythology of footwear began long before Dorothy stepped on to the yellow brick road.
▪ The yellow brick clinic stands vacant.
▪ There were several roads near by, but it did not take her long to find the one paved with yellow brick.
▪ The yellow brick of elevator buildings like his own.
■ NOUN
building
▪ This was a large mock-classical brick building, with columns and pediments.
▪ Today, the National Park Service offers boat tours along the canals, narrow quiet canyons between imperious five-story brick buildings.
▪ One mile to the south of the village lies Sand Hall, a large brick building erected in 1774.
▪ They spread out in front of the red brick buildings, whose ramparts produce a castle-like appearance.
▪ The two-storey, nineteenth-century Gothic, red brick building is currently buried in undergrowth.
▪ Most of the housing consists of squat, square and entirely functional brick buildings dating from the mid-1930s.
▪ The vicarage house is a handsome brick building in the Gothic style.
▪ Most brick buildings have walls that are flat over large areas.
dust
▪ The House also distinguished McGhee, as in that case the plaintiff's injury was caused by the brick dust.
▪ It meant brick dust and disorder.
▪ The soil is the colour of brick dust, with only deep dry gullies to show that water ever flowed here.
house
▪ Instead I was directed to a three-roomed brick house with corrugated iron roofing.
▪ Row after row of modest little brick houses are interspersed with delis and corner restaurants.
▪ On the western side of Louth is Thorpe Hall; a beautifully mellow brick house with lichen-clad roof.
▪ It was a timeless scene: a brick house, a mown meadow, a man and his boy playing ball.
▪ The rectory was a dour red brick house with ivy-clad walls where birds would soon be nesting.
▪ The Glen-Gery New York offices are in a nineteenth-century brick house, overlooking a tree-shaded courtyard.
▪ This was a frankly proletarian town, laid out in regular rows of plain brick houses.
▪ New brick houses were being built to replace prettier but more fragile jhumpas.
kiln
▪ In 1910 Hilton Anderson's foreman bricklayer was killed when he fell while demolishing a brick kiln.
▪ The 300 or so brick kilns of Juarez are just part of the problem.
▪ His body was wheeled off in a peat barrow and cremated in the local brick kiln.
▪ Each whale ship carries its own brick kiln, above which are two big shining pots.
mud
▪ However, even disintegrated mud brick can help to assess rebuilding phases in Penivian villages or Near Eastern tells.
▪ Even today many members of these tribes live in multi-occupation dwellings made from sun-dried mud bricks known as adobe.
▪ Archaeologists found it in a boat-shaped tomb 29m long, made out of mud bricks and buried deep in the sand.
▪ The ground was covered with crumbling mud bricks, heaps of cracked white stone.
oven
▪ The baker, with his back to her, was shovelling more loaves from the brick oven.
▪ On a small scale it re-creates the effects of a brick oven on a loaf of bread.
▪ Building a brick oven is one way to tap into that worldview.
▪ I will admit, however, that brick ovens do make exceptional breads with great crust.
structure
▪ The Rotonda is a large, simple brick structure, built in 1695 as a cemetery for the dead of Ospedale Maggiore.
▪ The school holds over 2, 500 young people in a massive brick structure that can only be described as foreboding.
▪ A permanent brick structure will require more space.
▪ Externally, the church is a simple and dignified brick structure, its lack of decoration suggesting a very early constructional date.
▪ Male speaker It's basically a massive brick structure carrying the water of the Bear brook through Aylesbury.
wall
▪ The brick walls and paving of the front garden are clean and tidy, but rather harsh.
▪ After the first day I felt like I had run into a brick wall.
▪ Apparently, Marr had been driving with his wife when he spun out of control and smashed into a brick wall.
▪ From behind high brick walls, you can hear bubbling fountains.
▪ The face relaxed and slid from view, the brick wall clouded and the screen blacked.
▪ A brick wall would be put upa labor.
▪ In the street Dexter watched three kids start to kick a football against a brick wall.
▪ Exposed the original brick walls, hung lamps with straw bonnets for shades, put in a small mahogany bar.
■ VERB
build
▪ Houses built of brick and flint, of indeterminate age but generally not of this century started to appear.
▪ The church was built of brick and chicken wire.
▪ The exterior is built in simple brick and stone courses and, like the interior has been restored a number of times.
▪ One built a house of straw, one built a house of sticks, one built a house of bricks.
▪ Lego should not get away with simply building a plastic brick replica of Yosemite Valley and other landmarks.
▪ Scott's building was formerly the Midland Grand Hotel, and is built of brick with stone dressings.
▪ He and Maurine built a one-bedroom red brick bungalow in the yard where Hayes had kept mules as a boy.
construct
▪ But it has endured because it was constructed of brick and volcanic rock between 1783 and 1792.
drop
▪ They drop their bricks and sticks, and run as if the hounds of hell are at their heels.
▪ Now, suppose that you were to file through the cement and drop the bricks side by side as before.
▪ If we heard the Colonel's car draw up, of course I had to drop my bricks and run.
▪ No wonder, perhaps, that Seaman dropped a brick.
hit
▪ Now she has hit a brick wall and has written to me to highlight the problem.
▪ When he was hit with the brick, he never told his parents.
▪ Must rising wages and expanding production hit a brick wall, leading to layoffs and falling output?
▪ Each time the ball hits the wall a brick disappears and you're closer to your aim of breaking down the wall.
▪ No soap box, no stump speech, no calling out, in a beer-barrel voice, to hit the bricks.
▪ And it stops you having to hit them with a brick.
▪ The car hit a brick wall!
lay
▪ Trying to raise efficiency and morale without first setting this structure to rights is like trying to lay bricks without mortar.
▪ They come in a range of colours and textures, and can be laid just like bricks.
make
▪ He had built a big new house in the valley, beside the best clay for making good hard bricks.
▪ She took off her muff and laid it down on the rough table made of planks and bricks.
▪ After a while they make adobe bricks and build their houses by stages, one room followed by another.
▪ The dome is made of brick with thick mortar joints.
▪ This will make bricks and tiles even more expensive, and in turn reduce demand.
▪ He started with making building bricks from it.
▪ You see we still insist on making our handmade bricks in the same painstaking way we've always made them.
▪ Archaeologists found it in a boat-shaped tomb 29m long, made out of mud bricks and buried deep in the sand.
run
▪ When scientists attempt to unravel the mysteries of the past they always run up against a brick wall.
▪ So after they ran into all these brick walls, they had no place else to go.
▪ After the first day I felt like I had run into a brick wall.
▪ I kept running into brick walls and making mistakes.
▪ He ran into a brick wall.
set
▪ It hung on the outside of the small wrought-iron gate set in the brick wall at the main entrance.
▪ She plopped down too much mortar, smoothed it out and set a brick on it.
▪ Gas Aga which serves central heating and domestic hot water and set in most attractive brick recess with exposed beam over.
▪ Turn it back again and set on three bricks.
▪ Having set our investment in bricks and mortar, we're now setting our sights on the future.
throw
▪ More than 20 shops were looted, some by hooligans who threw stones and bricks through windows.
▪ Some one threw a brick through his dining room window.
▪ I threw a brick through the window, ran away and then came back and did it again.
▪ People throw bricks, fight cops, disrupt Sunday services in churches, and spill blood all over the floor.
▪ She threw the brick over to the bonfire site and attacked with the fork again.
▪ When Angelina Weld took her turn, the crowd outside started throwing bricks through windows.
▪ However, neither Bush nor the protesters who throw bricks at him seem to get it.
use
▪ Building towers of different sized bricks but using bricks in one-to-one correspondence, probably with the teacher's guidance.
▪ Construction method would be single walled using concrete blocks and bricks.
▪ Your design can be created, using bricks and stones to make interesting shapes or by using herbs alone.
▪ About 200 thugs used bricks, crowbars and stones.
▪ They used sun-dried bricks widely, their bricks being of Lydian proportion, thin and measuring about 12 × 18 inches.
▪ The viaduct was built by Thomas Brassey to a design by Lewis Cubbitt, using locally made bricks, in 1848-50.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be (like) banging/bashing etc your head against a brick wall
be like talking to a brick wall
be/come up against a (brick) wall
▪ She swam in what she hoped was the direction of the stairs, only to come up against a wall.
come down on sb like a ton of bricks
drop a clanger/brick
▪ No wonder, perhaps, that Seaman dropped a brick.
hit a (brick) wall
▪ A man and his woman pillion passenger died instantly when they lost control of the machine and hit a wall.
▪ But by the mid-1970s, his career apparently hit a wall.
▪ But then Sumlin came on and hit a wall.
▪ He hit a wall hard enough to briefly ignite a magnesium wheel, but refused to slow down.
▪ He died because his car hit a wall.
▪ In these sessions, men generally will talk about the conflicts between job and family, but then hit a wall.
▪ Must rising wages and expanding production hit a brick wall, leading to layoffs and falling output?
▪ Now she has hit a brick wall and has written to me to highlight the problem.
hit sb like a ton of bricks
▪ The news of her accident hit me like a ton of bricks.
lay bricks/carpet/concrete/cables etc
▪ Compact the base, then lay concrete, using a 1 cement to 5 parts ballast mix.
▪ During the week I found work in town painting houses, laying carpets and delivering telephone books.
▪ Trying to raise efficiency and morale without first setting this structure to rights is like trying to lay bricks without mortar.
▪ Why didn't he lay concrete you ask?
like a cat on hot bricks
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Janet's a real brick.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A sudden gust of rain dashed against the red bricks that were already stained in patches by water.
▪ Helen piled bricks up in front of the stove, climbed up on them and began dropping the clothes in.
▪ Inside, the church has cream-washed walls, a brick floor and green painted pews.
▪ Ornate patterns are carved into the bricks framing the entrance.
▪ Stack bales like giant bricks to make the walls.
▪ Striding away from the house, Carolyn stubbed her toe badly on a brick end and had to sit down to nurse it.
▪ That was a real building, with real bricks.
▪ The 300 or so brick kilns of Juarez are just part of the problem.
II.verb
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be (like) banging/bashing etc your head against a brick wall
be/come up against a (brick) wall
▪ She swam in what she hoped was the direction of the stairs, only to come up against a wall.
come down on sb like a ton of bricks
hit sb like a ton of bricks
▪ The news of her accident hit me like a ton of bricks.
like a cat on hot bricks
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Brick

Brick \Brick\ (br[i^]k), n. [OE. brik, F. brique; of Ger. origin; cf. AS. brice a breaking, fragment, Prov. E. brique piece, brique de pain, equiv. to AS. hl[=a]fes brice, fr. the root of E. break. See Break.]

  1. A block or clay tempered with water, sand, etc., molded into a regular form, usually rectangular, and sun-dried, or burnt in a kiln, or in a heap or stack called a clamp.

    The Assyrians appear to have made much less use of bricks baked in the furnace than the Babylonians.
    --Layard.

  2. Bricks, collectively, as designating that kind of material; as, a load of brick; a thousand of brick.

    Some of Palladio's finest examples are of brick.
    --Weale.

  3. Any oblong rectangular mass; as, a brick of maple sugar; a penny brick (of bread).

  4. A good fellow; a merry person; as, you 're a brick. [Slang] ``He 's a dear little brick.''
    --Thackeray.

    To have a brick in one's hat, to be drunk. [Slang]

    Note: Brick is used adjectively or in combination; as, brick wall; brick clay; brick color; brick red.

    Brick clay, clay suitable for, or used in making, bricks.

    Brick dust, dust of pounded or broken bricks.

    Brick earth, clay or earth suitable for, or used in making, bricks.

    Brick loaf, a loaf of bread somewhat resembling a brick in shape.

    Brick nogging (Arch.), rough brickwork used to fill in the spaces between the uprights of a wooden partition; brick filling.

    Brick tea, tea leaves and young shoots, or refuse tea, steamed or mixed with fat, etc., and pressed into the form of bricks. It is used in Northern and Central Asia.
    --S. W. Williams.

    Brick trimmer (Arch.), a brick arch under a hearth, usually within the thickness of a wooden floor, to guard against accidents by fire.

    Brick trowel. See Trowel.

    Brick works, a place where bricks are made.

    Bath brick. See under Bath, a city.

    Pressed brick, bricks which, before burning, have been subjected to pressure, to free them from the imperfections of shape and texture which are common in molded bricks.

Brick

Brick \Brick\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bricked; p. pr. & vb. n. Bricking.]

  1. To lay or pave with bricks; to surround, line, or construct with bricks.

  2. To imitate or counterfeit a brick wall on, as by smearing plaster with red ocher, making the joints with an edge tool, and pointing them.

    To brick up, to fill up, inclose, or line, with brick.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
brick

early 15c., from Old French briche "brick," probably from a Germanic source akin to Middle Dutch bricke "a tile," literally "a broken piece," from the verbal root of break (v.). Meaning "a good, honest fellow" is from 1840, probably on notion of squareness (as in fair and square) though most extended senses of brick (and square) applied to persons in English are not meant to be complimentary. Brick wall in the figurative sense of "impenetrable barrier" is from 1886.

brick

"to wall up with bricks," 1640s, from brick (n.). Related: Bricked; bricking.

Wiktionary
brick

  1. Made of brick(s). n. 1 (context countable English) A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building. 2 (context uncountable English) Considered collectively, as a building material. 3 (context countable English) Something shaped like a brick. 4 (context dated English) A helpful and reliable person. 5 (context basketball slang English) A shot which misses, particularly one which bounces directly out of the basket because of a too-flat trajectory, as if the ball were a heavier object. 6 (context informal English) A power brick; an external power supply consisting of a small box with an integral male power plug and an attached electric cord terminating in another power plug. 7 (context technology slang English) An electronic device, especially a heavy box-shaped one, that has become non-functional or obsolete. 8 (context firearms English) a carton of 500 rimfire cartridges, which forms the approximate size and shape of a brick. 9 (context poker slang English) A community card (usually the turn or the river) which does not improve a player's hand. v

  2. 1 To build with bricks. 2 To make into bricks. 3 (context slang English) To hit someone or something with a brick. 4 (context computing slang English) To make an electronic device nonfunctional and usually beyond repair, essentially making it no more useful than a brick.

Related phrases:
WordNet
brick

  1. n. rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln; used as a building or paving material

  2. a good fellow; helpful and trustworthy

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Brick (song)

"Brick" is a song by American alternative rock group Ben Folds Five. It was released in November 1997 as a single from their album Whatever and Ever Amen and later on Ben Folds Live. The verses were written by Ben Folds about his high school girlfriend undergoing an abortion, and the chorus was written by the band's drummer, Darren Jessee. "Brick" was one of Ben Folds Five's biggest hits, gaining much mainstream radio play in the USA, the UK, and Australia in 1998.

Brick (disambiguation)

A brick is an artificial stone made by forming clay into hardened rectangular blocks.

Brick may also refer to:

Brick (magazine)

Brick is a biannual literary magazine established in 1977. It publishes literary and creative non-fiction.

Brick (comics)

Brick (Daniel "Danny" Brickwell) is a DC Comics villain and enemy of Green Arrow. Although his origin has not been revealed, Brick is a metahuman with a reddish, stony skin that grants him invulnerability and super-strength. His success as an underworld kingpin is due to his brilliant criminal mind rather than his superhuman powers.

Brick (band)

Brick is an American band that created a successful merger of funk and jazz in the 1970s. Their most popular single was " Dazz", (#3 U.S. Pop, #1 U.S. R&B, #36 UK Singles Chart) which was released in 1976.

Brick

A brick is building material used to make walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Traditionally, the term brick referred to a unit composed of clay, but it is now used to denote any rectangular units laid in mortar. A brick can be composed of clay-bearing soil, sand, and lime, or concrete materials. Bricks are produced in numerous classes, types, materials, and sizes which vary with region and time period, and are produced in bulk quantities. Two basic categories of bricks are fired and non-fired bricks.

Block is a similar term referring to a rectangular building unit composed of similar materials, but is usually larger than a brick. Lightweight bricks (also called lightweight blocks) are made from expanded clay aggregate.

Fired bricks are one of the longest-lasting and strongest building materials, sometimes referred to as artificial stone, and have been used since circa 5000 BC. Air-dried bricks, also known as mudbricks, have a history older than fired bricks, and have an additional ingredient of a mechanical binder such as straw.

Bricks are laid in courses and numerous patterns known as bonds, collectively known as brickwork, and may be laid in various kinds of mortar to hold the bricks together to make a durable structure.

Brick (film)

Brick is a 2005 American neo-noir thriller film written and directed by Rian Johnson in his directorial debut, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Brick was distributed by Focus Features, and opened in New York and Los Angeles on April 7, 2006.

The film's narrative centers on a hardboiled detective story set in a Californian suburb. Most of the main characters are high school students. The film draws heavily in plot, characterization, and dialogue from hardboiled classics, especially those by Dashiell Hammett. The title refers to a block of heroin, compressed roughly to the size and shape of a brick.

The film won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and received positive reviews from critics. It has come to be regarded as a cult classic.

Brick (electronics)

The word "brick", when used in reference to consumer electronics, describes an electronic device such as a smartphone, game console, router, or tablet computer that, due to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted firmware, or a hardware problem, can no longer function, hence, is as technologically useful as a brick.

The term derives from the vaguely cuboid shape of many electronic devices (and their detachable power supplies) and the suggestion that the device can function only as a lifeless, square object or paperweight.

This term is commonly used as a verb. For example, "I bricked my MP3 player when I tried to modify its firmware." It can also be used as a noun, for example, "If it's corrupted and you apply using fastboot, your device is a brick."

In the common usage of the term, "bricking" suggests that the damage is so serious as to have rendered the device permanently unusable.

Brick (soundtrack)

Brick: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the 2005 film of the same name. It was released on March 21, 2006 by Lakeshore Records. The soundtrack features the original score for the film composed by Nathan Johnson, lead of The Cinematic Underground as well as music by The Velvet Underground, Bunny Berigan, Anton Karas and Kay Armen and a song from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado recited by Nora Zehetner that was featured in the film.

Brick (Brick album)

Brick is the second album by the Atlanta, Georgia-based band Brick.

Brick (name)

Brick is a surname, although it is occasionally used as a given name or nickname. Notable people with the name include:

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "brick".

As she leaned against the wall of the house, the rough texture of the red brick gently abraded her bare shoulders.

My mother bought a brick cottage in Pulteney street and a Burra share with her legacy--both excellent investments--and my brother left the bank and went into the aerated water business with James Hamilton Parr.

But despite his acquittal the Latvian remained a dead Latvian and weighed on his mind like a ton of bricks, although he was said to have been a frail little man, afflicted with a stomach ailment to boot.

So it is here that we find extraordinarily well-preserved mummies, for example, and an ancient mud brick pueblo, Aldea de Tulor, that dates to about 800 BC.

The authentic city-man, to whom all properly planned Nature is of cement evenly marked out in squares, may for half an hour be able to admire the alienage of a Vermont valley with woods sloping up to a stalwart peak, even though he may not be sure whether the trees are date-palms or monkey-puzzles, and whether the hazy mountain is built of reinforced concrete or merely green-painted brick.

Ahead of us now was the target, a row of six or seven low-level, brick faced light industrial units with flat aluminium roofs and windows.

The unfinished Hassan Tower at Rabat having at one time become a place of evil resort, the reigning ameer ordered the way up to be destroyed, but it was found so hard that only the first round was cut away, and the door bricked up.

Christian leaned up against the brick walls of Amour Magique and grinned.

Light bulbs concealed beneath the brick rim illuminated the arching water, which swirled up from the crystal pool like an aqueous ballerina.

Adikor off near the home he had been looking for, a simple rectangular building, half grown by arboriculture, half built with bricks and mortar, with solar panels on its roof.

It is thrown aslant the stream, and not straight across it, and has a long brick approach.

I led Pele and Lono and Avoirdupois out the back door, across the little brick patio, across the public walkway, and onto the sand.

And when he had passed out of the province of Tetuan into the bashalic of El Kasar, the bareheaded country-people of the valley of the Koos hastened before him to the Kaid of that grey town of bricks and storks and palm-trees and evil odours, and the Kaid, with another notion of his errand, came to the tumble-down bridge to meet him on his approach in the early morning.

But the new bell tower looked awkward near the fine, late Roman concrete, marble, and brick basilican edifice.

They had to go single file, feeling their way along rough, slimily bemisted brick.