brickbat
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L317379 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈbɹɪkbæt/ / /ˈbɹɪkˌbæt/
noun
Etymology: The noun is derived from brick + bat (“a bit, piece; specifically, part of a brick with one whole end”). The verb is derived from the noun.
- A piece of brick, rock, etc., especially when used as a weapon (for example, thrown or placed in a sock or other receptacle and used as a club).
“[S]he sēt [sent] a brick back after him & hit him on þᵉ back, […]”
“[Y]ᵉ body of King Charles the First was privately putt into the Sand about White-hall; and the coffin that was carried to Windsor and layd in K. Hen[ry] 8^(th's) vault was filled with rubbish, or brick-batts.”
- A piece of (sharp) criticism or a (highly) uncomplimentary remark.
“I beſeech ye friends, ere the brickbats flye, reſolve me and your ſelves, is it blasphemy, or any vvhit diſagreeing from Chriſtian meekneſſe, […] for me to anſvver a ſlovenly vvincer of a confutation, that, if he vvould needs put his foot to ſuch a ſvveaty ſervice, the odour of his Sock vvas like to be neither Musk, nor Benjamin?”
“Not honoured, hardly even envied; only fools and the flunkey-species so much as envy me. I am conspicuous,—as a mark for curses and brickbats. What good is it?”
verb
Etymology: The noun is derived from brick + bat (“a bit, piece; specifically, part of a brick with one whole end”). The verb is derived from the noun.
- To attack (someone or something) by swinging or throwing brickbats (noun sense 1).
“We had two boys arrested, both colored, for brick-batting a colored woman in her house. They were sent to the chaingang for 12 months each.”
- To assail (someone or something) with (sharp) criticism.