Brickyards

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Sites where clay is shaped, dried and fired into bricks for use in building construction
2. Outdoor works or plants where workers mould and bake clay blocks used as building material
3. Factories or open grounds devoted to producing the bricks that houses and walls are built from

Etymology: "Brickyards" is the plural of "brickyard," a compound of "brick" and "yard." Both parts are old English words: "yard" comes from Old English "geard," meaning an enclosed piece of ground, the same root that gave "garden" and "yard" its sense of a fenced enclosure. "Brick" entered English from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, bringing with it the idea of a baked clay block, and the word first named the material itself before it was used for the building units. Put together, a brickyard is simply an enclosed ground where bricks are made and dried and fired. The plural form "brickyards" refers to several such sites, which is why the word is most often seen in the context of industrial districts, local place names, or historical records of clay-working.

Synonyms: brickworks, brickfield