Meaning & use
brick
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Meanings
nouncountable
A hard rectangular block of baked clay, used for building walls and other structures.
Grammar: Countable: one brick, two bricks; also used before another noun (brick wall).
Patterns
- a brick wall
- lay bricks
- made of brick
The house was built of red brick.
He laid bricks for the garden path.
They used bricks to build the wall.
verbtransitiveinformal
To make an electronic device stop working completely, usually by a failed software update.
Grammar: Takes an object: brick a phone. Often used in the passive: the phone was bricked.
Patterns
- brick a device
- get bricked
The update bricked my tablet.
If you interrupt the process, you might brick the phone.
Many users reported that their devices were bricked after the update.
Word forms
| plural | bricks |
|---|---|
| third person singular | bricks |
| past tense | bricked |
| past participle | bricked |
| -ing form | bricking |
Common combinations
- brick wall
- The car crashed into a brick wall.
- lay bricks
- The workers laid bricks all morning.
- red brick
- She likes the look of red brick houses.
- brick by brick
- They built the shed brick by brick.
- a brick of
- He bought a brick of ice cream.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- brickwork noun
- The bricks in a wall or building, considered as a whole.
- bricklayer noun
- A person whose job is to build walls with bricks.
- brickie noun
- Informal British word for a bricklayer.
Practice
The software update accidentally ___ my phone, so I had to buy a new one.
Choose one answer.
The past tense 'bricked' is needed because the action happened in the past. 'Brick' is the base form, 'bricks' is present tense for he/she/it, and 'bricking' is the -ing form, none of which fit the past tense context.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “brick”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.