brick
/bɹɪk/
"brick" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“brick” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #4,658 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #4,658
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | brick |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /bɹɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #4,658 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “brick” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for brick is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɹɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,658 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for brick, with forms such as "bbrick", "birck", and "brcik". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "buck", "Brit", "brig", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Middle English brik, bryke, bricke, from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch bricke ("cracked or broken brick; tile-stone"; modern Dutch brik), ultimately related to Proto-West Germanic *brekan (“to break”), whence also Old French briche and French… The correct English form is brick, spelled B-R-I-C-K.
Definition
- 1A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building.
- 2Such hardened mud, clay, etc. considered collectively, as a building material.
- 3Something shaped like a brick.
- 4The colour brick red.
- 5A helpful and reliable person.
- 6A 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.
- 7A power brick; an external power supply consisting of a small box with an integral male plug and an attached cord terminating in another plug.
- 8An electronic device, especially a heavy box-shaped one, that has become non-functional or obsolete.
- 9A projectile.
- 10A carton of 500 rimfire cartridges, which forms the approximate size and shape of a brick.
- 11A community card (usually the turn or the river) which does not improve a player's hand.
- 12A card in a player's hand that is currently unplayable.
- 13A kilogram of cocaine.
- 14A trans woman who does not pass.
- 15A reel or short video.
Etymology
From Late Middle English brik, bryke, bricke, from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch bricke ("cracked or broken brick; tile-stone"; modern Dutch brik), ultimately related to Proto-West Germanic *brekan (“to break”), whence also Old French briche and French brique (“brick”). Compare also German Low German Brickje (“small board, tray”). Related to break. The social media slang sense derives from memes about building up one's feed “brick by brick”, analogizing bricks with reels that inform the algorithm.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbrick,birck,brcik,bricck,brickk,brikc,brrick,rbick
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of brick - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “brick”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-R-I-C-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /bɹɪk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “buck” - see the side-by-side comparison. brick vs buck
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.