brick

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A hard rectangular block of baked clay used for building.

   The garden wall is made of red bricks.

2. 2
   noun

   Baked clay considered as a building material.

   Their house is built of brick.

3. 3
   noun

   Something shaped like a brick.

   He bought a brick of butter at the market.

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. The social media slang sense derives from memes about building up one's feed “brick by brick”, analogizing bricks with reels that inform the algorithm.

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