Brickworks

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A factory or plant where clay is shaped, fired and processed to produce bricks for building construction
2. An industrial site with kilns and machinery in which raw earth material is baked into building blocks
3. The place where bricks are manufactured, typically including clay pits, moulding equipment and large ovens

Etymology: Brickworks is about as transparent as English compounds get: a plain pairing of "brick" and "works," where "works" in this sense means a factory or place of production. A brickworks is, in other words, a site where bricks are made, and the word follows the same pattern as ironworks, glassworks and waterworks. The older sense of "works" as a place of manufacture is what makes the compound make sense. Words built this way, joining a material to "works," name the plant that turns raw stuff into a finished product, so the term describes the factory rather than the brick itself.

Synonyms: brickyard, brickfield, brick factory