different between brick vs square

English

Etymology

From Middle English brik, bryke, bricke, from Middle Dutch bricke ("cracked or broken brick; tile-stone"; modern Dutch brik), whence also Old French briche and French brique (“brick”). Compare also German Low German Brickje (“small board, tray”). Related to break.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: br?k, IPA^(key): /b??k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Noun

brick (countable and uncountable, plural bricks)

1. (countable) A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building.

   This wall is made of bricks.

2. (uncountable) Such hardened mud, clay, etc. considered collectively, as a building material.

   This house is made of brick.

3. (countable) Something shaped like a brick.

   a plastic explosive brick

   • 2011, Seth Kenlon, Revolution Radio (page 70)

     The handyman considered the question and I knew she had a brick of ground beans in her bag but was considering whether the beds and a hot drink was worth a brick of coffee.

   • 2012, Kevin Sampson, Powder (page 34)

     He disentangled himself from the safe door and delved inside. He brought out a brick of banknotes.

4. (slang, dated) A helpful and reliable person.

   Thanks for helping me wash the car. You're a brick.

   • 1903 Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, ch. 48:

     Theobald's mind worked in this way: "Now, I know Ernest has told this boy what a disagreeable person I am, and I will just show him that I am not disagreeable at all, but a good old fellow, a jolly old boy, in fact a regular old brick, and that it is Ernest who is in fault all through."
5. (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.

   We can't win if we keep throwing up bricks from three-point land.

6. (informal) A power brick; an external power supply consisting of a small box with an integral male power plug and an attached electric cord terminating in another power plug.
7. (computing slang, figuratively) An electronic device, especially a heavy box-shaped one, that has become non-functional or obsolete.
8. (firearms) A carton of 500 rimfire cartridges, which forms the approximate size and shape of a brick.
9. (poker slang) A community card (usually the turn or the river) which does not improve a player's hand.

10. The colour brick red.
11. (slang) One kilo of cocaine.

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? Welsh: brics

Translations

Adjective

brick (not comparable)

1. (colloquial, African-American Vernacular, New England, of weather) Extremely cold.
   • 2005, Vibe (volume 12, number 14, page 102)

     And while the tropics are definitely the place to be when it's brick outside, rocking a snorkel on the beach only works when you're snorkeling.

   • 2014, Ray Mack, Underestimated: A Searcher's Story (?ISBN), page 89:

     He was always hanging tight with me and since he had access to a ride . . . it made traveling easier. I mean it was no biggie brain buster to take the train, but when it's brick outside . . . fuck the A train.

Derived terms

• brick shithouse

Translations

Verb

brick (third-person singular simple present bricks, present participle bricking, simple past and past participle bricked)

1. To build with bricks.
   • 1914, The Mining Engineer, Institution of Mining Engineers, page 349

     The shaft was next bricked between the decks until the top scaffold was supported by the brickwork and [made] to share the weight with the prids.

2. To make into bricks.
   • 1904 September 15, James C. Bennett, Walter Renton Ingalls (editor), Lead Smelting and Refining with Some Notes on Lead Mining (1906), The Engineering and Mining Journal, page 66

     The plant, which is here described, for bricking fine ores and flue dust, was designed and the plans produced in the engineering department of the Selby smelter.

3. (slang) To hit someone or something with a brick.
4. (computing slang) To make an electronic device nonfunctional and usually beyond repair, essentially making it no more useful than a brick.

   My VCR was bricked during the lightning storm.

   • 2007 December 14, Joe Barr, “PacketProtector turns SOHO router into security powerhouse”, Linux.com

     installing third-party firmware will void your warranty, and it is possible that you may brick your router.

   • 2016, Alex Hern, Revolv devices bricked as Google's Nest shuts down smart home company (in The Guardian)

     Google owner Alphabet’s subsidiary Nest is closing a smart-home company it bought less than two years ago, leaving customers’ devices useless as of May. […] The company declined to share how many customers would be left with bricked devices as a result of the shutdown.

Antonyms

• (technology, slang: revert a device to the operational state): unbrick

Derived terms

• bricker
• brick in
• brick over
• brick up
• brick it

Translations

See also

• brickfielder
• brick it

Further reading

• brick on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “brick”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

French

Etymology

From English brig.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b?ik/

Noun

brick m (plural bricks)

1. (nautical) A brig, a two-masted vessel type.
2. A fritter with a filling.

Further reading

• “brick” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Manx

Noun

brick m pl

1. plural of breck

Mutation

Scots

Verb

brick

1. South Scots form of brak (“to break”)

English

Etymology

From Middle English square, sqware, squyre; from Old French esquarre, esquerre, (modern French équerre), from Vulgar Latin *exquadra, from Latin ex- +? quadro, from quadrus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /skw??(?)/, /skw??(?)/, enPR: skwâr
• (US) IPA^(key): /skw??/, enPR: skwâr
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Noun

square (plural squares)

2. (geometry) A polygon with four sides of equal length and four right angles; an equilateral rectangle; a regular quadrilateral.
   • 1927, Kazimir Malevich, The Non-Objective World

     I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field.

3. Something characterized by a square, or nearly square, form.
   1. A cell in a grid.

   2. A square piece, part, or surface, such as a square of glass.
   3. The front of a woman's dress over the bosom, usually worked or embroidered.
   4. (Canada, US) A dessert cut into rectangular pieces, or a piece of such a dessert.
   5. (printing) A certain number of lines, forming a portion of a column, nearly square; used chiefly in reckoning the prices of advertisements in newspapers.
4. An L- or T-shaped tool used to place objects or draw lines at right angles.

   Synonyms: steel square, framing square, carpenter's square

   1. (figuratively, obsolete) A true measure, standard, or pattern.
5. An open space or park, often in the center of a town, not necessarily square in shape, often containing trees, seating and other features pleasing to the eye.

   • The statue of Alexander the Seventh stands in the large square of the town.

   • 1995 October 10, NewsRadio, season 2 episode 3:

     You're not in Wisconsin, Dave. The big story isn't about a cow wandering into the town square.

   Synonyms: piazza, plaza

   1. (often in street names or addresses) A street surrounding a public square or plaza.

      Synonym: place

6. (mathematics) The product of a number or quantity multiplied by itself; the second power of a number, value, term or expression.

7. (military) A body of troops drawn up in a square formation.
   • 1818, quoted in Christopher Kelly, History of the French Revolution and of the Wars produced by that Memorable Event

     The French cavalry, in proof armour, repeatedly charged our squares, their cannon opening chasms; but the British infantry, though greatly diminished, were inflexible and impenetrable to the last.

   • 1897, Henry Newbolt, Vitae Lampada

     The sand of the desert is sodden red,— / Red with the wreck of a square that broke;— / The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead, / And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

   • 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society 2010, page 144:

     After disastrous attempts to break the Russian squares, during which, Longworth recounts, ‘the best and the bravest of the warriors fell victim to their own rashness’, the Circassians likewise changed their tactics.

8. (1950s slang) A socially conventional or conservative person; a person who has little or no interest in the latest fads or trends: still sometimes used in modern terminology.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:mainstreamer

9. (Britain) The symbol # on a telephone; hash.

   Synonyms: hash, sharp, (US) pound sign

10. (cricket) The central area of a cricket field, with one or more pitches of which only one is used at a time.

11. (real estate) A unit of measurement of area, equal to a 10 foot by 10 foot square, i.e. 100 square feet or roughly 9.3 square metres. Used in real estate for the size of a house or its rooms, though progressively being replaced by square metres in metric countries such as Australia.
    • 2006, Macquarie Bank (Australia), press release Macquarie releases Real Estate Market Outlook 2006 - "The World Squared", 21 June 2006 [3]

      Just as the basic unit of real estate measurement across the world is the square

    • 2007, Your Estate advertisement for Grindelwald Tasmania [4]

      The house is very large and open and boasts 39 squares of living space plus over 13 squares of decking area on 3 sides and 17 squares of garage and workshop downstairs.

12. (roofing) A unit used in measuring roof area equivalent to 100 square feet (9.29 m2) of roof area.
13. (academia) A mortarboard
14. (colloquial, US) A square meal.

15. (archaic) Exact proportion; justness of workmanship and conduct; regularity; rule.
    • 1594-1597, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

      They of Galatia [were] much more out of square.
16. The relation of harmony, or exact agreement; equality; level.

    • We live not on the square with such as these.

17. (astrology) The position of planets distant ninety degrees from each other; a quadrate.
18. (dated) The act of squaring, or quarrelling; a quarrel.
19. (slang) Cigarette.
20. (brewing) A vat used for fermentation.

Derived terms

Translations

Descendants

• ? Welsh: sgwâr

Adjective

square (comparative squarer, superlative squarest)

1. Shaped like a square (the polygon).
2. Forming a right angle.

   Synonyms: orthogonal, perpendicular, normal

   Antonym: crooked

   1. (nautical) Forming right angles with the mast or the keel, and parallel to the horizon; said of the yards of a square-rigged vessel when they are so braced.
3. Used in the names of units of area formed by multiplying a unit of length by itself.

   Coordinate terms: cubic, linear

4. Honest; straightforward.

   Synonyms: above board, on the level, on the square, on the up and up, straight

   • 1908, Perceval Landon, Thurnley Abbey

     I am not very good at analysing things, but I felt that she talked a little uncomfortably and with a suspicion of effort, smiled rather conventionally, and was obviously glad to go. These things seem trifling enough to repeat, but I had throughout the faint feeling that everything was not square.

5. Fair.

6. Even; tied

8. (slang, derogatory) Socially conventional; boring.

   Synonym: bourgeois

9. (cricket) In line with the batsman's popping crease.
10. Correctly aligned with respect to something else.
11. Hearty; vigorous.

    • By Heaven, square eaters. More meat, I say.

12. Having a shape broad for the height, with angular rather than curving outlines.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

square (third-person singular simple present squares, present participle squaring, simple past and past participle squared)

1. (transitive) To adjust so as to align with or place at a right angle to something else; in particular:
   1. (nautical) To place at a right angle to the mast or keel.

   2. (rowing) To rotate the oars so that they are perpendicular to the water.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To resolve or reconcile; to suit or fit.

3. To adjust or adapt so as to bring into harmony with something.
4. (transitive, mathematics) Of a value, term, or expression, to multiply by itself; to raise to the second power.
5. (transitive) To draw, with a pair of compasses and a straightedge only, a square with the same area as.

6. (soccer) To make a short low pass sideways across the pitch
7. (archaic) To take opposing sides; to quarrel.
8. To accord or agree exactly; to be consistent with; to suit; to fit.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Charity

     No works shall find acceptance […] that square not truly with the Scripture plan.

9. (obsolete) To go to opposite sides; to take an attitude of offense or defense, or of defiance; to quarrel.
10. To take a boxing attitude; often with up or off.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Dickens to this entry?)

11. To form with four sides and four right angles.
12. To form with right angles and straight lines, or flat surfaces.
    • 2002, William Boyd: Any Human Heart:

      Everything on his writing desk was squared off: blotter, paper knife, pen rack.

13. To compare with, or reduce to, any given measure or standard.
14. (astrology) To hold a quartile position respecting.
    • 1697, Thomas Creech, The five books of M. Manilius containing a system of the ancient astronomy and astrology, done into English verse

      the icy Goat, the Crab that square the Scales

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• cubic
• quadrilateral
• rectangle
• rhombus

Further reading

• square on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English square. Doublet of équerre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skwa?/

Noun

square m (plural squares)

1. small public garden in the middle of a square

   Le square de la tour Saint-Jacques.

Further reading

• “square” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• arques, raques

Middle English

Alternative forms

• sqware, squyre, squyer, sqyre, squar, sware

Etymology

From Old French esquarre, esquerre (modern French équerre), from Vulgar Latin *exquadra, from Latin ex- +? quadro, from quadrus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?skwa?r(?)/, /?skw??r(?)/, /?skwi?r(?)/

Noun

square (plural squares)

1. A square (tool used to ensure a right angle)
2. A square (equilateral rectangle); a square plot of land.
3. One of the edges of a square.

Descendants

• English: square
• Scots: square

References

• “squ?r(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-17.