bricks

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of brick.

   Red bricks lined the outer walls of the old factory.

   The masons laid bricks in even rows all afternoon.

   Note

   The count plural is for separate blocks: a pallet of bricks, bricks laid in rows. When the material itself is meant, English often keeps the uncountable singular, as in a house of brick or built in red brick. The plural therefore points to pieces rather than substance. The slang basketball sense counts too: a player who keeps missing flat shots throws bricks. The same spelling also serves the present-tense verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of brick.

   The contractor usually bricks over unused windows to cut heating costs.

   A botched update sometimes bricks the phone completely.

   Note

   Whether it takes an object depends on the meaning. In the building sense and the slang sense of ruining a device, it is transitive: a mason bricks a doorway, an update bricks a phone. A device can also brick on its own, as when the tablet bricks halfway through a reset. Used without an object, it can also mean to blunder, another slang use.

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