Brick n.
 1. 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.
    The Assyrians appear to have made much less use of bricks baked in the furnace than the Babylonians.   --Layard.
 2. Bricks, collectively, as designating that kind of material; as, a load of brick; a thousand of brick.
    Some of Palladio's finest examples are of brick.   --Weale.
 3. Any oblong rectangular mass; as, a brick of maple sugar; a penny brick (of bread).
 4. A good fellow; a merry person; as, you 're a brick. [Slang] “He 's a dear little brick.”
 To have a brick in one's hat, to be drunk. [Slang]
 Note: ☞ Brick is used adjectively or in combination; as, brick wall; brick clay; brick color; brick red.
 Brick clay, clay suitable for, or used in making, bricks.
 Brick dust, dust of pounded or broken bricks.
 Brick earth, clay or earth suitable for, or used in making, bricks.
 Brick loaf, a loaf of bread somewhat resembling a brick in shape.
 Brick nogging Arch., rough brickwork used to fill in the spaces between the uprights of a wooden partition; brick filling.
 Brick tea, 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. --S. W. Williams.
 Brick trimmer Arch., a brick arch under a hearth, usually within the thickness of a wooden floor, to guard against accidents by fire.
 Brick trowel. See Trowel.
 Brick works, a place where bricks are made.
 Bath brick. See under Bath, a city.
 Pressed brick, 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.


 Clay n.
 1. A soft earth, which is plastic, or may be molded with the hands, consisting of hydrous silicate of aluminium. It is the result of the wearing down and decomposition, in part, of rocks containing aluminous minerals, as granite. Lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, and other ingredients, are often present as impurities.
 2. Poetry & Script. Earth in general, as representing the elementary particles of the human body; hence, the human body as formed from such particles.
    I also am formed out of the clay.   --Job xxxiii. 6.
 The earth is covered thick with other clay,
 Which her own clay shall cover.   --Byron.
 Bowlder clay. See under Bowlder.
 Brick clay, the common clay, containing some iron, and therefore turning red when burned.
 Clay cold, cold as clay or earth; lifeless; inanimate.
 Clay ironstone, an ore of iron consisting of the oxide or carbonate of iron mixed with clay or sand.
 Clay marl, a whitish, smooth, chalky clay.
 Clay mill, a mill for mixing and tempering clay; a pug mill.
 Clay pit, a pit where clay is dug.
 Clay slate Min., argillaceous schist; argillite.
 Fatty clays, clays having a greasy feel; they are chemical compounds of water, silica, and aluminia, as halloysite, bole, etc.
 Fire clay , a variety of clay, entirely free from lime, iron, or an alkali, and therefore infusible, and used for fire brick.
 Porcelain clay, a very pure variety, formed directly from the decomposition of feldspar, and often called kaolin.
 Potter's clay, a tolerably pure kind, free from iron.