brick
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: brĭk
ipa: /bɹɪk/
rhymes: -ɪk
Forms: form: bricks
form: bricking
form: bricked
form: bricked
Etymology: From Late Middle English brik, bryke, bricke, from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch bricke ("cracked or broken brick; tile-stone"; modern Dutch brik), ultimately related to Proto-West Germanic *brekan (“to break”), whence also Old French briche and French brique (“brick”). Compare also German Low German Brickje (“small board, tray”). Related to break.
Senses: examples: text: to be bricked alive (as a form of capital punishment)
text: If the ground is strong right up to the surface, a few yards are usually sunk and bricked before the engines and pit top are erected
ref: 1904, Thomas Hansom Cockin, An Elementary Class-Book of Practical Coal-Mining, C. Lockwood and Son, page 78:
text: The shaft was next bricked between the decks until the top scaffold was supported by the brickwork and [made] to share the weight with the prids.
ref: 1914, The Mining Engineer, Institution of Mining Engineers, page 349:
text: He came in and we went out to the back area I'd bricked amateurishly years ago.
ref: 2010, Peter Corris, Torn Apart, Allen and Unwin, page 18:
glosses: To build, line, or form with bricks.
examples: text: The plant, which is here described, for bricking fine ores and flue dust, was designed and the plans produced in the engineering department of the Selby smelter.
ref: 1904 August 15, James C. Bennett, “Lead Smelting and Refining with Some Notes on Lead Mining”, in Walter Renton Ingalls, editor, The Engineering and Mining Journal, published 1906, page 66:
glosses: To make into bricks.
glosses: To hit someone or something with a brick.
examples: text: My VCR was bricked during the lightning storm.
text: Just need to project against users from deleting NK.BIN and bricking the device.
ref: 2002 October 15, Mike Leeson, “How to write protect nk.bin”, in microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder (Usenet), retrieved 25 Feb 2016, message-ID <OHm5#hLdCHA.2592@tkmsftngp09>:
text: installing third-party firmware will void your warranty, and it is possible that you may brick your router.
ref: 2007 December 14, Joe Barr, “PacketProtector turns SOHO router into security powerhouse”, in Linux.com:
text: Google owner Alphabet’s subsidiary Nest is closing a smart-home company it bought less than two years ago, leaving customers’ devices useless as of May. […] The company declined to share how many customers would be left with bricked devices as a result of the shutdown.
ref: 2016, Alex Hern, “Revolv devices bricked as Google's Nest shuts down smart home company”, in The Guardian:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To make (an electronic device) non-functional and usually beyond repair, as a result of software or configuration issues.
examples: text: My phone bricked halfway through the videoconference.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
antonyms: unbrick
glosses: Of an electronic device, to become non-functional, especially in a way beyond repair, as a result of software or configuration issues.
glosses: To blunder; to screw up.
Derived terms: brick in
brick it
brick oneself
brick over
brick up