brick, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

brick n.

[the solidity of the object]

1. the lit. or fig. solidity/density of the objec, note Marples (1940): ‘brick [...] the usage is probably derived from like a brick = ‘with good will, vigorously’ (1836), with the implication of weight.

(a) a reliable, kind, selfless person.

1812		‘Architectural Atoms’ in H. Smith Rejected Addresses 92: Some half baked rover [...] Soon quits his Cyprian for his married brick.
c.1820		‘A Loaf of Bread’ [ballad] I think you’re a brick to do that, Johnny Green; / I think you’re a brick to do that.
1837		A. Greene Glance at N.Y. I iv: You’re a perfect brick!
1840		R. Barham ‘Lord of Thoulouse’ Ingoldsby Legends (1847) 193: Rigmaree, you’re a Brick!
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Mar. 2/4: The men came to the scratch with confidence and slogged away like bricks.
1848		Paul Pry Nov. n.p.: ‘Frank,’ is a brick, and no mistake.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 Mar. 1/3: He [...] came up to the knock-me-down scratch like a rig’lar brick.
1854		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) II 204: He was also considered to be one of those hilarious fragments of masonry, popularly known as ‘jolly bricks’.
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 15 Jan. n.p.: Our chieftain is a brick, / Ferocious, brave and funny.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: Turmeric is pronounced to be a ‘brick,’ as [...] his range of vision being limited, he can't ‘twig’ all the ingenious devices brought into play.
1860		Green Mountain Freeman (Montpelier, VT) 2 Feb. 1/2: ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed Marnelli [...] ‘you are a brick, Slocum, a brick’.
1861		Hills & Plains 2 136: ‘What a brick that woman is’’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 316/1: They thought, to use their own words, ‘he was a jolly old brick’.
1871		Gympie Times (Qld) 11 Jan. 3/6: The highest compliment you can pay him is to tell him that he is a ‘regular brick’.
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 116: Let him go on, he’ll give you a lively one. He’s a brick.
1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 246: ‘Where is the gold chain, Jack me brick, you said you were going to get’.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Feb. 4/3: At puddings and pies she’s a ‘stunner,’ / At roasting and boiling no chick; In fact, she’s really ‘A1’-er – / A regular housekeeping brick.
1884		Leics. Chron. 31 May 12/1: You’re a brick, Fred, and no mistake.
1894		G. du Maurier Trilby 352: Willy behaved like a brick.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 12: Brick, a good fellow.
1900		J. Conrad Lord Jim 115: ‘You are a brick,’ he cried next in a muffled voice.
1911		E.B. Morris Freshman in College Comedies 32: Worden. You’re a brick.
1914		W. Sickert New Age 3 Mar. 569: Cheer up, Sir Roger, you are a jolly brick! / For if you ain’t Sir Roger, you are Old Nick!
1924		Hartford Courant (CT) 10 Dec. 11/2: ‘You’re a brick, all right, Bill’.
1929–31		Auden ‘Shorts’ Coll. Poems (1976) 55: She gives him hell / When he is well, / But she’s a brick / When he is sick.
1936		W. Holtby South Riding (1988) 278: Mavis has been a brick! I can’t tell you the way that little woman’s thrown herself into my interests.
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 4: brick. The word [is used] to express high approval of an individual person — e.g. ‘You are a brick’ (earliest date 1840, ‘a regular brick’): characteristic nineteenth century phrases were ‘a jolly brick’ and ‘no end of a brick'.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 419: I think you’re a brick.
1974		P. Larkin ‘Sympathy in White Major’ High Windows 11: A brick, a trump, a proper sport.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 75: Helen was not just a brick, but a mate. I’d do my best.

(b) (Aus.) in ironic use of sense 1a, a gang member, a wayward young man; thus brickism, the philosophy of joining and acting in a gang; note cit. 1848.

1840		Tasmanian Weekly Dispatch (Hobart) 31 July 7/1: Some of the vagabonds of the Town, who call them selves ‘Bricks’, had much annoyed Clark [AND].
1841		Geelong Advertiser 14 Aug. 2/4: Midnight Marauders. We had hopes that this gang of mischievous youths had been broken up [...] If the police would only keep a sharp eye upon them for a few nights, and lay a few of them fast by heels, the spirit of ‘brickism’ would soon be broken [AND].
1848		J. Syme Nine Years in Van Diemen’s Land 285: They pride themselves in being termed ‘bricks’, that is, because they do not flinch at the lash.
1856		M. Griffith Autobiog. of a Female Slave 245: I was a wild boy; a ‘brick’ as they usin’ to call me.
1866		Sydney Punch 13 Jan. 687/1: How very hard headed both Scotch and Colonial ‘bricks’ are [AND].

1896

W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 5: brick n. spirit, courage right feeling.

(d) as my brick, a term of friendly address.

1877

J. Greenwood Dick Temple III 160: My proposition, my brick, is [...] to make a bolt of it.

(e) harsh criticism, negative response.

1889

Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 16 Feb. 11/1: ‘[Australians are] the most critical audience I ever struck [...] I have seen shows in England cheered where “bricks” would have been the only applause for the artistes at my place’ .

(f) (Aus.) a thug, a tough.

1901

Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Apr. 8/6: The odds were on the Melbun brick / (Witch color sir he were), / Brick-top & red, the smaller joint / Were rather dark than fair.

(g) an attractive person.

1911

S. Ford Torchy 105: She’s Mrs. Piddie, of course, and she’s a brick. Say, how is it these two-by-fours can pull out such good ones so often?

(h) a fool.

1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 198: brick, term of disparagement.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 9: Behaving in all other respects in her presence like the complete dumb brick.
1949		Wodehouse Mating Season 47: Entrusting her happiness to a dumb brick who would probably dish the success of the honeymoon.

(i) (US campus) a mess, a failure.

1918		El Paso Herald (TX) 19 Nov. 7/5: If the draggee does not come up to the standards of charm held by the dragger, she is termed a ‘brick’.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 88: Brick A person without much social or academic ability. An ugly blind date.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
1991		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 1: brick – fail; a mess, failure.
1996		W.D. Myers Slam! 183: [of an inaccurate basketball shot] [H]e couldn’t make a shot. Guy threw up so many bricks he could have been in construction.

(j) see brickhouse n.² (2)

2. the shape of the object.

(a) (US, also bricking) a punishment, performed by bringing someone’s knees close up to the chin and tying the arms tightly to the knees.

1863		Daily Tel. Aug. (Amer. Corresp.) n.p.: Another favourite punishment [...] was that of ‘bricking’, which was done by bringing the knees close up to the chin and lashing the arms tightly to the knee .
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(b) (US prison) a carton of cigarettes.

1981		Maledicta V:1+2 (Summer + Winter) 267: In prison, cigarets serve as a universal means of exchange, with a brick being a carton.
1999		Guardian Editor 28 May 20: Brick: A carton of cigarettes.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Brick: A carton of cigarettes.

1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 100/1: brick or brick-gum. Crude gum or gum opium before it is rolled for smoking.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 33: brick [...] brick gum Gum opium.
1967		Current Sl. II:1 2: Brick, n. Liter of uncut marijuana.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970) 50: brick [...] (1) pressed block of gum opium or morphine for shipment. (2) pressed block of marijuana, weighing 1 pound or 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), which is shipped by mail or freight in this form.
1976		R. Sabbag Snowblind (1978) 186: He opened up a brick of the strangest-looking marijuana Swan had ever seen. It was white.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 171: Me an’ some brothers gon’ trip on down to T.J. [Tijuana] and score a righteous brick o’ shit.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 4: Brick — 1 kilogram of marijuana.
2002		50 Cent ‘Wanksta’ 🎵 I’m getting what you get for a brick to talk greasy / By any means, partner, I got to eat on these streets / If you play me close, for sure I’m gonna pop my heat.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 87: They taught me to turn a $50 brick of pot into $200.

(d) (UK und.) a bar of gold.

1935

Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 2: Brick: Bar of gold.

(e) 1kg (2.2lb) of heroin; but note volume in cite 2010: 700 gms/1.5 lb.

1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 126: Let him know somebody [...] looking to buy a coupla bricks.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 24: Alf would come strolling out [...] smile on face and smack in hand. A brick of it, a kilo.
2003		A.N. LeBlanc Random Family 46: The bricks were the size of the small boxes of soap from the vending machines in a Laundromat [...] Bricks of heroin were diluted and packaged for retail sale.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 334: A brick (a 700 gram unit) would be $90,000.

(f) (US drugs) 1kg (2.2lb) of cocaine or crack cocaine.

1976		R. Sabbag Snowblind (1978) 94: Here was some dude, not even a chemistry major, coming on to you with mikes, grams, bricks, kilos and hundredweights.
2001		UGK ‘Let Me See It’ 🎵 I’m servin’ niggas bricks.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 4: Brick — Crack Cocaine; cocaine.
2004		Jin ‘Good, the Bad & the Ugly’ 🎵 Sell the last few bricks he had in his stash.
2007		UGK ‘Underground Kingz’ 🎵 Records don’t sell, I’m back to selling bricks.
2012		‘Dutch’ ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] He was making almost four times as much as he did in Newark off each brick of coke.
2015		J. Spades ‘Flexin’’ 🎵 Sell bricks or you sell zizz then the pagans them / A go tell feds.
2022		Billy Billions ‘Tizzy’ 🎵 In the trap with a brick and a strap.

(g) a large piece of excrement.

1993

A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 139: Even when he comes out of the bathroom it’s ‘Maan, you should see the fucken brick I jus’ laid.’ Him and his ego.

(h) one gram of heroin.

2000		‘Damage Down’ in Portland Phoenix 12–19 Oct. 🌐 I first started using heroin in ’92, it cost $40 a bag, which is a tenth of a gram [...] Ten bags equal a bundle, and five bundles equal a brick.
2017		www.firstthings.com Apr. 🌐 Gilberto in Rhode Island claims to have put a million dollars into each of his needle-pocked arms, at the rate of three fifty-bag ‘bricks’ of heroin a day.

(i) (N.Z. prison) a stack of (usu.) $100 notes wrapped in clingfilm.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 30/1: 3 a large stack of money, usually $100 notes, sometimes wrapped tightly in clingfilm.

(j) a box of ammunition.

2008

G. Pelecanos Way Home (2009) 270: ‘You gonna need some bullets, right?’ ‘Not a whole box.’ ‘I only sell bricks’.

(k) an early-model mobile telephone, both the dimensions and the weight of a brick.

2009		R. Milward Ten Storey Love Song 49: She pulls out her Mitsubishi brick and dials her cousin’s office.
2020		(con. 1989) D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 199: Webb was waiting for Swann [...] talking into his brick, glancing at his watch.

3. the trad. colour – red – of a brick and/or the number 10 (or multiples).

(a) (Aus./N.Z.) a £10 or $10 note (which is red).

1899		‘Sydney – It’s No Place for Me’ in Tivoli Songster 🎵 I gushed from that theatre quick, / Someone threw at me a ‘brick’.
1902		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 8 Jan. 1/5: Several guileless (or is it greedy?) punters whom the price prevailed upon to part, in the hope of putting down a brick and picking up a house.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Downfall of Mulligan’s’ in Three Elephant Power 64: Pop it down, gents! Pop it down! If you don’t put down a brick you can’t pick up a castle!
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 237: The shock of grabbing a few bricks.
1941		Williamstown Chron. (Vic.) 3 May 6/2: [He] would be showing a profit of a ‘brick’ (£10) this season.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 98: You go out to the dogs and start punting on Canterbury with a brick in your dook. Yes, you’ve got a whole ten pound note.
1954		Sun. Mail (Adelaide) 25 Sept. 45/2: This guy Hassick [...] asked me for a ‘brick’ in a stand-over manner.
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 55: [I]ncidents such as the day an urger pulled him up at Flemington and blandly asked him for a ‘brick’. Considering £10 a bit rich, Ossie pulled a pound note from his pocket and held it out.
1968		D. O’Grady A Bottle of Sandwiches 205: The publican owed me a ‘brick’.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 219: Chris and Craig also put a brick each on Bas.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 77: ‘Got change of a brick?’.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Brick. 1. Ten. As in [...] ten dollars.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 64: First of all [...] he gave her a bingle on the number it had also cost him a brick or so to get from one of the commissionaires .
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 29/2: brick n. 1 a $10 note.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 66: ’$10’ as a denomination was, and is [...] a ‘brick’, which has been passed on from the once popular term for the sum of £10 (that is, 10 pound), and which derives from the colour of the £10 note.

(b) by ext. of sense 3a, a ten-year prison sentence, in cite 2001 a ‘life’ sentence = 10 years, thus do a brick, serve a life (10 year) sentence.

1950		S.J. Baker in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/3: Slang words for sentences of various lengths include: ‘deuce,’ two months; ‘drag,’ three months; ‘sprat,’ six months; ‘the clock,’ twelve months; ‘spin’ or ‘full hand,’ five years; ‘brick,’ ten years; ‘the lot,’ life imprisonment.
1968		J. Alard He who Shoots Last 124: It mighta been worse; I coulda got a brick.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 132: A few years ago there was a crim killed when some bricks from a building construction in the jail fell on him. Well, the joke that went around was ‘did you hear about the who got a brick and couldn’t handle it?’.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Brick. 1. Ten. As in ten year sentence.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 30/1: brick 2 a life sentence (10 years) [...] do a brick to serve a life sentence.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Brick. 1. Ten. As in [...] ten pounds weight.

(d) (Aus.) $20.

1996

J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 217: [H]e trotted out to the ring and plonked a second brick on Tontonan .

(e) (N.Z. prison/und.) $1000.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 30/1: brick 4 $1,000.

In derivatives

brickish (adj.)

a general term of approbation; thus brickishness, brickness n., the quality of being good-hearted.

1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 25/1: Brickish hearty, hard as a brick.
[1838		‘Alfred Crowquill’ Seymour’s Humourous Sketches (1866) 167: i’m in jolly good health and harty as a brick].
1844		A. Smith Adventures of Mr Ledbury I 261: ‘How’s the times?’ ‘Brickish,’ replied one of the party.
1860		Westmoreland Gaz. 7 July 2/6: The Bristol Volunteers march up their band [...] as gallant and brickish a body as ever stepped out.
1873		J. Duns Memoir of J.Y. Simpson 518: My brother David and I communicated to each other the discovery we had made of ‘what a brick’ he was, and agreed that his ‘brickishness’ called for our care in not vexing him.
1883		T.B. Reed Willoughby Captains (1887) 29: ‘Jolly brickish of you, old man’.
1885		Fife Free Press 18 Apr. 3/1: Collectively, they’re bricks. But if there’s one thing that either their good nature or their brickness won’t stand its patronage.
1887		T.B. Reed Willoughby Captains 262: After all your brickishness to me, and now, after your helping me out as you did in the scrimmage yesterday, I’m awfully ashamed of being such a low cad.
1906		Daily Chronicle 26 July 3/2: Janet’s sheer ‘brickishness’ held her faithful to her organist .
1924		‘Ford Madox Ford’ Some Do Not i vi 163: They had talked [...] about the brickishness of the parson in taking her in.

In phrases

bricks, blocks and bats (n.)

(N.Z. und.) housebreaking (see cite 2001).

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 30/1: bricks, blocks and bats a house burglary; in this context, a brick is a stack of money, a block is a wristwatch, and a bat is a weapon (e.g. baseball bat).

SE in slang uses

In compounds

brickfielder (n.) [orig. a thick cloud of dust brought over Sydney, New South Wales, by a south wind from neighbouring sandhills (called the ‘brickfields’)] (Aus.)

1. in Sydney, a sudden squally wind, bringing relief at the end of a hot day although sometimes accompanied by a dust-storm.

1829		Sydney Monitor 10 Oct. 2/6: His Excellency and family were placed in considerable danger whilst sailing in consequence of a brickfielder [...] which nearly capsized the boat [AND].
1833		Lt. Breton, R.N. Excursions in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land 293: It sometimes happens that a change takes place from a hot wind to a brickfielder, on which occasions the thermometer has been known to fall, within half an hour, upwards of fifty degrees!
1844		J. Rae Sydney Illus. 26: The ‘brickfielder’ is merely a colonial name for a violent gust of wind, which, succeeding a season of great heat, rushes in to supply the vacuum, and equalises the temperature of the atmosphere.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 46: [of Sydney] At length comes the expected ‘Brickfielder,’ drifting the pulverized abominations into every pore of the human frame.
1863		F. Fowler Athenaeum 21 Feb. 264 I: The brickfielder is not the hot wind at all; it is but another name for the cold wind or southerly buster, which follows the hot breeze, and which, blowing over an extensive sweep of sandhills called the Brickfields, semi-circling Sydney, carries a thick cloud of dust (or brickfielder) across the city.
1898		E.E. Morris Austral Eng. 52/2: Brickfielder. [...] The brickfields lay to the south of Sydney, and when, after a hot wind from the west or north-west, the wind went round to the south, it was accompanied by great clouds of dust, brought up from the brickfields.
1915		N. Duncan Aus. Byways 130: A southerly buster would blow – a Sydney brickfielder.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 128: ‘The brickfielder’, a blustery southerly wind that once blew grit and dust far and wide over infant Sydney.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] The breeze comes again, stronger this time and somehow even dryer than before. It is a brickfielder straight from the desert, like opening an oven door.

2. a hot, dusty wind that blows over parts of northern Australia.

1840		A. Russell Tour through Aus. Colonies 206: The hot winds are oppressive [...] at Adelaide. These winds are generally termed brickfielders.
1847		A. Marjoribanks Travels in New South Wales 61: The thermometer is sometimes raised by them [hot winds] to 120 degrees in the shade, but they are invariably succeed by [...] a ‘brickfielder,’ which is a strong southerly wind.
1861		‘Old Bushman’ Bush Wanderings 231: In Melbourne a hot windy day is called a ‘brickfielder.’ [AND].
1886		F. Cowan Aus., a Charcoal Sketch n.p.: The Buster and Brickfielder: Austral red-dust blizzard and red-hot simoon.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer II 25: Don’t you think we shall be hard set to get home before the ‘brickfielder’ falls upon us?
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. 28/1: A ‘brickfielder’ is needed to blow our shores free from the curse of Socialism; the church should cleanse itself of Socialism.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 13: The clouds of flies [...] and the heat distressed her. A ‘brickfielder’ frightened and prostrated her.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 230/2: brickfielder – a hot, dry wind blowing down from the north or off the desert.
1957		J. Greenway ‘Aus. Cattle Lingo’ in AS XXXIII:3 165: brickfielder, n. A hot dust storm.

brick gum (n.) [gum n.³] (drugs)

1. a block of unprocessed opium.

1937		B. Dai Opium Addiction in Chicago.
1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 100/1: brick or brick-gum. Crude gum or gum opium before it is rolled for smoking.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 33: brick [...] brick gum Gum opium.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 306: brick gum. Gum opium.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).

2. heroin.

2001		ONDCP Street Terms 4: Brick gum — Heroin.
2004		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.

brickhead (n.)

a stupid person.

1977

A. Bleasdale Who’s Been Sleeping in my Bed 103: ‘Don’t play funny buggers with me, brick head,’ the copper said.

brickhouse (n.)

see separate entries.

bricklayer (n.) [? SE rubrick layer; but F&H note, first, the medieval church official the operarius, the workman ‘on whom devolved the charge of repairing and maintaining the sacred fabric’ of a church or cathedral; and, second, the line in Ephesians that compares such early Christians as St Paul to ‘master-builders’ whose greatest ‘building’ is the Church]

a clergyman.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

brick-presser (n.) [hit the bricks under bricks n.]

(US black) a tramp, a vagrant.

1873		Public Ledger (Memphis, TN) 17 July 3/2: George Harman, a Jefferson street brick presser who does nothing for an honest living, was sent to jail.
1882		Highland Wkly (Hilsborough, OH) 12 July 1/3: Our professional ‘brick pressers’, vulgarly called ‘loafers,’ are nearly all out in the rural districts now [...] binding wheat.
1906		Adair Co. News (Columbia, KY) 24 Oct. 5/5: Columbia has less [...] brick-pressers and chair warmers than any other small town in the state.
1922		Missouri Herald (Hayti, MO) 21 Apr. 5/3: Tomatocan Willie [...] town brick-presser [...] has just got back from Mexico where he was accidentally carried by going to sleep on a mule train.
1926		Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 285: brick-presser: an idler; literally one who walks the pavement.
1931		N. Van Patten ‘Vocab. of the Amer. Negro’ in AS VII:1 27: brick-presser. V. n. Idler.

bricktop (n.) (also brick roof) [the redness of ‘typical’ bricks]

(US) a redhead; also as adj.; thus brick-topped, redheaded.

1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 5 Mar. n.p.: the whip wants to know [...] If Mrs Tucker’s late birth was [...] a brick-top.
1856		‘Q.K. Philander Doesticks’ Elephant Club 163: A head of hair which the youth of America are accustomed to designate as a ‘brick-top’.
1873		Leeds Times 10 May 4/8: A Michigan girl who is lame, has red hair, and no teeth [...] used formerly to be called ‘oothless Bricktop’.
1876		Bossier Banner (Bellevue, LA) 9 Nov. 4/5: Near the back door [...] lay an unfortunate female vagrant whose only known name is ‘Bricktop’.
1880		Burnley Advertiser 28 Feb. 3/6: Address your wife as ‘Mrs’, and your husband as ‘Mr’. Such terms as ‘old bricktop’ and ‘chowderhead’ sound very affected.
1888		Canterbury Jrnl 12 May 3/2: In some schools such boys are promptly nicknamed [...] Bricktop, Shorty, Beanpole.
1895		Ocala Eve. Star (FL) 24 June 1/1: ‘Johnny,’ called a Seventh street mother out of the window to her hopeful, ‘do stop playing with that Willie Bricktop. It’s too warm today to play with a red headed boy’.
1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum VI n.p.: That brick-topped Murphy, fourteen dollar jay.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Apr. 8/6: The odds were on the Melbun brick / (Witch color sir he were), / Brick-top & red, the smaller joint / Were rather dark than fair.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 161: It was to lick a feller who’d yelled ‘brick-top’ after Sadie that started me to takin’ my first boxin’ lessons.
1912		Van Loan ‘A Rain Check’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 307: A lanky, red-headed young man climbed down [...] ‘Who’s the brick-top?’ asked White.
1926		Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict. 5/2: Brick roof – Red headed.
1935		M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 25 May 5/1: Bricktop Wright and Bricktop Smith were so nick-named because their craniums are hard and not carrot-tops as you were led to believe.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 164: ‘She’s a bricktop gal.’ ‘Bricktop?’ ‘A redhead.’.
2000		F.X. Toole Rope Burns 191: The ugly brick-top would be so easy to finger in a lineup that he’d be spending most of his life in the joint.

In phrases

...bricks

see under bricks n.

have a brick in one’s hat (v.) (also wear a brick in one’s hat) [one is top-heavy (see top-heavy under top n.)]

(orig. US) to be extremely drunk.

1846		Columbian Fountain (DC) 2 July 4/1: When he turns a customer into the street with ‘a brick in his hat,’ or decently drunk, who don’t he attach a piece of paper to his coat tail, stating where he got the liquor?
1846		Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects (1848) 61: A ‘shocking bad ’un’ was his hat, and matted was his hair. He wore a ‘brick’ within that hat.
1853		Brooklyn Eve. Star 7 Apr. 2/4: Jones says he went home one night with an extensive ‘brick in his hat’.
1860		Spirit of Democracy (Woodsfield, OH) 25 July 4/1: Synonyms [for drunk] [...] slewed, fuzzled, [...] swamped, raddled, nappy, [...] having a brick in one’s hat, limber, tired [...] toddled, slung-shot.
1863		in Southern Historical Society Papers (1884) xii 245: On one occasion I was so unlucky as to get a brick side of my head, though some say it was in my hat.
1874		Knoxvbille Wkly Chron. (TN) 29 Apr. 7/1: A few Lick creek men were in town [...] on a ‘bender’ [...] One of the,m with a ‘brick’ in his hat, tried to raise a disturbance.
1882		Northern Trib. (Cherboygan, MI) 30 Dec. 8/2: in his wanderings about town he succeeded in getting a large ‘brick in his hat’.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1896		Hutchinson Gaz. (KS) 25 June Was Shakespeare a Mason? [...] ‘How so?’ ‘Why, all writers agree that he often went home with ‘a brick in his hat’: .
1910		Ocala Eve. Star (FL) 24 May 3/5: Mr Channing [...] coming home at 3 a.m., with a brick in his hat [...] tried to lie himself into good standing, but [etc].

like a ton of brick(s) (adv.) (also like a thousand of brick(s), like half a ton of bricks)

with the full force of one’s anger or energy; often as come down on someone like...

1837		N.Y. Times 18 Aug. 2/7: [The Irishman] was only gammoning the auctioneer, and pitching into him like a thousand of brick.
1847		J.S. Robb Streaks of Squatter Life 37: He lit upon the upper town and its member ‘like a thousand of brick!’.
1854		N.Y. Clipper 24 Feb. 3/5: Dick [...] placed them [i.e. cakes] before his ravenous customers who ‘pitched into them like a thousand of brick’.
1859		in N.E. Eliason Tarheel Talk (1956) 262: The Faculty came down on them [i.e. the students] like a thousand of brick.
1860		N.O. Picayune 27 Apr. (Police Report) n.p.: He fell upon us like a thousand of bricks, and threatened to make minced meat of the police and every one of us [F&H].
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 314: Another ludicrous exaggeration of this kind is taken from the violence and noise with which ordinarily bricks are dumped out of carts; a thing done vehemently and with much display is said to be like a thousand of bricks.
1887		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Oct. 18/1: The Rev. Dowie [...], who does faith-healing in job-lots, is down on sport like a thousand of bricks.
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 28 Dec. 10/2: If they will let me know of their proposed serpentine eccentricities I’ll be onto them like a thousand of bricks .
1897		Oxford Mag. 15 113: Then the other came down like a ton of bricks on your muddle about Footer and Rugger, and told the old chestnut about Soccer and Rugger and Gaelic footer .
1904		Manchester Courier 25 Aug. 10/3: He was down on preachers like a ton of bricks.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 166: He came down on them like 1,000 of Brick if they failed to be Polite.
1910		B.L. Bowen ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 445: like a thousand of bricks, adv.phr. Heavily.
1911		Holbrook News (Navajo Co., AZ) 14 Apr. 6/6: When I make errors [...] she doesn’t call me silly or headstrong or come down opun me like a ton of bricks.
1917		Wodehouse ‘ Making of Mac’s’ in Man with Two Left Feet 129: Andy would have come down like half a ton of bricks on the first sign of slackness.
1921		Washington Herald (DC) 24 Jan. 9/1: His 220 pounds of brawn comes down like several tons of bricks across [...] his prostrate opponent.
1927		B. Cormack Racket Act III: This respectable public that’s been keepin’ you awake at nights’d come down on you like a ton o’ brick.
1937		Lancs. Eve. Post 5 Mar. 14/3: Mr Clarkson would ‘pounce down like a ton of bricks’ on anyone smoking in his premises.
1947		Kent & Sussex Courier 26 Dec. 6/3: He had two more cracks before Wicks [...] descended on the Borstal goal like a ton of bricks and made it 3-1.
1950		Gloucs. Echo 22 Dec. 6/4: [headline] Van Hit Him ‘Like a Ton of Bricks’.
1958		A. Sillitoe Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 25: They’d be down on me like a ton of bricks.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 126: It’s up to you to get onto that loose ball like a ton of bricks.
1975		Sepe & Telano Cop Team 196: Me and the Indian are gonna come down on you shits like a ton of bricks.
1984		P. Barker Blow Your House Down 56: If it ever got round she was doing that the other girls’d be down on her like a ton of bricks.

press brick (v.)

see press the bricks under bricks n.