BRICK

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does brick mean? 

• BRICK (noun)
  The noun BRICK has 2 senses:

1. 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

  Familiarity information: BRICK used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BRICK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln; used as a building or paving material

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("brick" is a kind of...):

ceramic (an artifact made of hard brittle material produced from nonmetallic minerals by firing at high temperatures)

building material (material used for constructing buildings)

Meronyms (substance of "brick"):

clay (a very fine-grained soil that is plastic when moist but hard when fired)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brick"):

adobe; adobe brick (sun-dried brick; used in hot dry climates)

clinker; clinker brick (a hard brick used as a paving stone)

firebrick (brick made of fire clay; used for lining e.g. furnaces and chimneys)

cope; coping; header (brick that is laid sideways at the top of a wall)

mud brick (a brick made from baked mud)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A good fellow; helpful and trustworthy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("brick" is a kind of...):

good person (a person who is good to other people)

 Context examples 

After a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew so difficult that the Scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow bricks, which were here very uneven.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

For my temptation to think it a right, I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and casements above, in Highbury.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

“This is the street,” said he, as we turned into a short thoroughfare lined with plain two-storied brick houses.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is as if the 6MMPr was able to imitate one of the bricks, so that when Zika virus “builds” the wall, it would stop replicating.

(Brazil scientists discover Zika virus inhibitor, Agência Brasil)

Radar images from the flyby indicate that the comet is about 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) in diameter and has an irregular shape: looks like a brick on one side and a pear on the other.

(Comet Flying by Earth Observed with Radar and Infrared, NASA)

It is but a small place, with an ivied church, a fine vicarage, and a row of red-brick cottages each in its own little garden.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The soil bricks on their own were good enough to filter organic waste and nutrients from the water.

(Soil-based filter bricks clean up water for Moroccan farmers, SciDev.Net)

We compress the earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing what they are. But that is a mere detail.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An old red-brick mansion, used as a school, was in its place; and a fine old house it must have been to go to school at, as I recollect it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The Portuguese held his tongue like a brick, and walked the plank, while the jolly tars cheered like mad.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)