brick

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A molded rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln until hard and used as a building and paving material.
• noun Such blocks of clay used as a building material.
• noun An object shaped like such a block.
• noun A dark brownish red.
• noun Informal A helpful, reliable person.
• noun Basketball A shot that falls short of the basket.
• transitive verb To construct, line, or pave with bricks.
• transitive verb To close or wall with brick.
• idiom (drop a brick) To make a clumsy social error.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To break by pulling back.
• noun A kind of artificial stone made (usually) of moistened and finely kneaded clay molded into rectangular blocks (the length of which is commonly twice the breadth), and hardened by being burned in a kiln, or sometimes, especially in warm countries, by being dried in the sun. Sun-dried bricks are usually now, as in remote antiquity, mixed with chopped straw to give them greater tenacity. (See adobe.) Bricks in the United States and Europe are generally red (see brick-clay), but some clays produce yellowish bricks, as for example the Milwaukee brick much used as an ornamental building material in the United States. The bricks made in China and Japan are invariably of a slaty-blue color.
• noun A mass or object resembling a brick: as, a brick of tea; a silver brick. Specifically
• noun A loaf of bread.
• noun In heraldry, a charge similar to a billet, but depicted so as to show the thickness, that is, in perspective.
• Made of brick; resembling brick; as, a brick wall; a brick-red color.
• noun A breach.
• noun A rent or flaw.
• noun A portion of land (apparently the same as breck, 4).
• To lay or pave with bricks, or to surround, close, or wall in with bricks.
• To build in with bricks; place in brickwork.
• To give the appearance of brick to: said of a plastered wall when it is smeared with red ocher and joints are made in it with an edgetool, and then filled with fine plaster to resemble brickwork.
• noun A good fellow, in an emphatic sense: a term of admiration bestowed on one who on occasion or habitually shows in a modest way great or unexpected courage, kindness, or thoughtfulness, or other admirable qualities.
• noun “In brief I don't stick to declare Father Dick, So they called him for short, was a regular brick; A metaphor taken, I have not the page aright, Out of an ethical work by the Stagyrite.”
• noun Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, Brothers of Birchington.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A block or clay tempered with water, sand, etc., molded into a regular form, usually rectangular, and sun-dried, or burnt in a kiln, or in a heap or stack called a clamp.
• noun Bricks, collectively, as designating that kind of material.
• noun Any oblong rectangular mass.
• noun Slang A good fellow; a merry person.
• noun [Slang] to be drunk.
• noun clay suitable for, or used in making, bricks.
• noun dust of pounded or broken bricks.
• noun clay or earth suitable for, or used in making, bricks.
• noun a loaf of bread somewhat resembling a brick in shape.
• noun (Arch.) rough brickwork used to fill in the spaces between the uprights of a wooden partition; brick filling.
• noun tea leaves and young shoots, or refuse tea, steamed or mixed with fat, etc., and pressed into the form of bricks. It is used in Northern and Central Asia.
• noun (Arch.) a brick arch under a hearth, usually within the thickness of a wooden floor, to guard against accidents by fire.
• noun See Trowel.
• noun a place where bricks are made.
• noun See under Bath, a city.
• noun bricks which, before burning, have been subjected to pressure, to free them from the imperfections of shape and texture which are common in molded bricks.
• transitive verb To lay or pave with bricks; to surround, line, or construct with bricks.
• transitive verb To imitate or counterfeit a brick wall on, as by smearing plaster with red ocher, making the joints with an edge tool, and pointing them.
• transitive verb to fill up, inclose, or line, with brick.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun countable A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building.
• noun uncountable Considered collectively, as a building material.
• noun countable Something shaped like a brick.
• noun dated A helpful and reliable person.
• noun basketball, slang A shot which misses, particularly one which bounces directly out of the basket because of a too-flat trajectory, as if the ball were a heavier object.