Brickfields

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Open tracts of land where clay is dug and fired into bricks ; a district in the centre of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia
2. Sites of open ground given over to the digging of clay and the baking of bricks ; a neighbourhood in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital
3. Stretches of clay-working ground where bricks are shaped and kilned ; an urban area of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia known by this name

Etymology: "Brickfields" is the plural of "brickfield," a compound of "brick" and "field." Both parts are ordinary Old English-rooted words: "brick" comes from Middle English and Old French ideas of baked clay, while "field" is an old Germanic word for open cultivated or cleared ground. Put together, a brickfield is simply a field where bricks are made, the land dug for clay and the works built on it. The plural form matters in practice. Brickfields were rarely single plots. In industrial areas, especially around London and other clay-rich regions, many such sites clustered together, and the plural name became a way of describing whole districts shaped by brickmaking rather than one isolated pit. The word is transparent in a way many English place names are not: it tells you exactly what happened on the ground.

Synonyms: brickyard