Brick

How to spell brick

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce brick

What does brick mean?

1. nounA small rectangular block of baked clay used for building walls and structures.
2. verbTo close off or fill in an opening with brickwork.

Brick in a sentence

• noun

  The builder laid each brick in a neat, even row.

• verb

  The owners decided to brick up the unused side door.

• noun

  A single loose brick had worked free from the garden wall.

• verb

  Workers came to brick over the old fireplace before the repaint.

Where does brick come from?

Language of origin: French

Brick came into English in the 1400s from the Old French and Middle French word 'brique', which referred to a block of baked clay used in building. The French term itself is generally traced back to a Germanic source, related to a word meaning 'a piece' or 'a fragment broken off', the same family that gives us the verb 'to break'. That sense of a broken or cut-off lump of material fits the way clay was once shaped, cut, and fired into standard blocks. Before the word arrived, English builders mostly used the native term for baked clay, but the imported 'brick' quickly became standard as brick-making spread across late medieval England. Because the spelling settled early and follows a plain, regular pattern, brick has stayed simple and consistent ever since.

How the word is built

• brick (single morpheme, a borrowed Middle French noun)