brick wall

English

Noun

brick wall (plural brick walls)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see brick,‎ wall. A wall made of bricks.
2. (figurative) An obstacle.

   The investigators came up against a brick wall in their search for the missing money when they discovered it had been transferred overseas.

   • 1981, Donald D., William R. Corliss Baals, Wind Tunnels of NASA‎^[1]:

     They all ran up against the brick wall of high cost until the cryogenic option was proven feasible in 1973.

3. (sound engineering) A type of anti-aliasing filter with a steep cutoff.
   • 2005, Daniel M. Thompson, Understanding Audio, →ISBN:

     One of the first problems with the digital audio process is the use of brick wall filters with very steep slopes for anti-aliasing and anti-imaging purposes.

   • 2012, Steve Hung, Lung Tu, Analog Circuit Design for Communication SOC, →ISBN, page 184:

     To reconstruct the sampled signal, an ideal brick wall filter is demanded to remove the output of band signal.

   • 2012, Art Kay, Operational Amplifier Noise, →ISBN:

     For example, a first order filter can be converted to a brick wall filter by multiplying by the brick wall factor 1.57.

4. (figurative) Someone who is silent or unresponsive.
   • 1987, National Thespian Dramatic Honor Society for High Schools, Dramatics, volume 59, page 23:

     When mama says she doesn't talk, she means it. She's a brick wall.

   • 1992, Judith Caseley, My Father, The Nutcase, page 34:

     "Does he talk much? I mean, does he initiate conversation?"
     "No. He's a brick wall," I said.

   • 1997, Edward R.F. Sheeran, Cardinal Galsworthy, page 182:

     Having uttered these benign assurances, Mr Burner III became a brick wall.

Derived terms

• hit a brick wall

Related terms

• brick-wall limiter
• like talking to a wall
• stonewall

Translations

wall

• Crimean Tatar: tola divar
• Finnish: tiiliseinä (fi)
• Icelandic: múr (is) m
• Portuguese: muro de tijolos m
• Romanian: zid de cărămidă n

obstacle

• Finnish: seinä (fi), tiiliseinä (fi)

someone unresponsive

• Finnish: tuppisuu (fi)

Verb

brick wall (third-person singular simple present brick walls, present participle brick walling, simple past and past participle brick walled)

1. To build a brick wall around.
   • 2013, Cyril A. Peters, Ignoble Imitation, →ISBN, page 98:

     They forcefully imprisoned her in a decorative room and brick walled it.

2. (sound engineering) To filter using a brick wall filter.
   • 2005, Douglas Spotted Eagle, Instant Digital Audio, →ISBN, page 77:

     Audio recorded too quietly means that there is more opportunity for noise, even in today's digital workflow. Audio recorded too loud will distort in the analog world, and will simply "brick wall" in digital terms.

3. To halt or limit abruptly.
   • 2012, Geoff Dyer, The Colour of Memory, →ISBN:

     The driver stopped the cab on the spot, brick-walled it then and there.

   • 2017 August 21, Bradford Doolittle, “Justin Verlander's domination of Dodgers looked like Astros audition”, in ESPN:

     Baseball's unstoppable force -- the 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers -- ran smack into peak-form Verlander, who brick-walled their six-game winning streak.

4. To be uncooperative and unresponsive.
   • 2012, Donald Moffitt, A Gathering of Stars, →ISBN:

     They wanted to know how successful the attack had been. But you brick-walled them.

   • 2012, Virdean, Making the Rules, →ISBN:

     My rapid dial wouldn't work, and when I was finally able to get a Homeland Security office phone number to reach you, the receptionist brick walled me.

   • 2017, Lauren Layne, Ready To Run: I Do, I Don't, →ISBN:

     But he'd brick-walled her on something that obviously caused him pain.