"put up a brick" meaning in English

See put up a brick in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: puts up a brick [present, singular, third-person], putting up a brick [participle, present], put up a brick [participle, past], put up a brick [past]
Etymology: Implies the basketball is as heavy and stiff as a literal building brick instead of having a soft, clean arc. Head templates: {{en-verb|<,,put>|head=put up a brick}} put up a brick (third-person singular simple present puts up a brick, present participle putting up a brick, simple past and past participle put up a brick)
  1. (slang, idiomatic, basketball) Taking a bad shot that strongly misses the target and clanks loudly off the rim or backboard. Tags: idiomatic, slang Synonyms: throw up a brick Related terms: brick (english: sense 6), bricklayer
{
  "etymology_text": "Implies the basketball is as heavy and stiff as a literal building brick instead of having a soft, clean arc.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "puts up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "putting up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,put>",
        "head": "put up a brick"
      },
      "expansion": "put up a brick (third-person singular simple present puts up a brick, present participle putting up a brick, simple past and past participle put up a brick)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Basketball",
          "orig": "en:Basketball",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Taking a bad shot that strongly misses the target and clanks loudly off the rim or backboard."
      ],
      "id": "en-put_up_a_brick-en-verb-wshBSYaB",
      "links": [
        [
          "basketball",
          "basketball"
        ],
        [
          "clank",
          "clank"
        ],
        [
          "backboard",
          "backboard"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, idiomatic, basketball) Taking a bad shot that strongly misses the target and clanks loudly off the rim or backboard."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "english": "sense 6",
          "translation": "sense 6",
          "word": "brick"
        },
        {
          "word": "bricklayer"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "throw up a brick"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "slang"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "ball-games",
        "basketball",
        "games",
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "put up a brick"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Implies the basketball is as heavy and stiff as a literal building brick instead of having a soft, clean arc.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "puts up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "putting up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "put up a brick",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "<,,put>",
        "head": "put up a brick"
      },
      "expansion": "put up a brick (third-person singular simple present puts up a brick, present participle putting up a brick, simple past and past participle put up a brick)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "english": "sense 6",
      "translation": "sense 6",
      "word": "brick"
    },
    {
      "word": "bricklayer"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English slang",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Basketball"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Taking a bad shot that strongly misses the target and clanks loudly off the rim or backboard."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "basketball",
          "basketball"
        ],
        [
          "clank",
          "clank"
        ],
        [
          "backboard",
          "backboard"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang, idiomatic, basketball) Taking a bad shot that strongly misses the target and clanks loudly off the rim or backboard."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "throw up a brick"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "slang"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "ball-games",
        "basketball",
        "games",
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "put up a brick"
}

Download raw JSONL data for put up a brick meaning in English (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-06-07 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-06-01 using wiktextract (e79dea5 and 7f4db16). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.