brick up

English

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To block or cover using bricks.

   I am going to brick up the window instead of replacing the glass.

   The tunnel's mouth was bricked up because it was unsafe.

   • 1953 April, Henry Maxwell, “Abandoned Railway Stations”, in Railway Magazine, page 271:

     Or it may be that the trains continue to pass but never more will stop, and the platforms are stripped and laid bare, the doorways bricked up, the overbridges dismantled, and the empty buildings stare out upon the passing trains with the reproachful melancholy of an old tombstone in a city churchyard overlooking a city street.

2. (transitive) To trap or seal in a closed space using bricks.

   Synonym: brick in

   The chest was bricked up into the wall.

   • 2020 December 11, Richard Speed, “Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there”, in The Register‎^[1], archived from the original on 2022-01-20:

     We've encountered servers bricked up into secret rooms many times, but never a UPS hidden behind a locked door.

3. (transitive, slang) To cause (someone) to have an erection.
   • 2023, Lula White, Drink You (Explore Men of the Hamptons; 3), Lula White Books, →ISBN, page unknown:

     She’s got a little meat along her lats and femur muscles that bricks me up more.

Related terms

• bricked up

Translations

to block by masonry

• Finnish: muurata umpeen
• German: zumauern (de)
• Portuguese: tijolar
• Russian: замуровать (ru) (zamurovatʹ)
• Swedish: mura igen, mura för

References

• “to brick up” under “brick, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “brick up”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.