brickbat

n.

1. A piece, especially of brick, used as a weapon or missile.
2. An unfavorable remark; a criticism.

[BRICK + BAT¹, piece of brick.]

WORD HISTORY   The earliest sense of brickbat, first recorded in 1563, was "a piece of brick." Such pieces of brick have not infrequently been thrown at others in the hope of injuring them; hence, the figurative brickbats (first recorded in 1929) that critics hurl at performances they dislike. The appearance of bat as the second part of this compound is explained by the fact that the word bat, "war club, cudgel," developed in Middle English the sense "chunk, clod, wad," and in the 16th century came to be used specifically for a piece of brick that was unbroken on one end.

A bat, 1.

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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: a fragment of brick used as a weapon

Meaning #2: blunt criticism

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - kasteskyts, hård kritik

Nederlands (Dutch)
raket, kritische opmerking

Français (French)
n. - violente critique, morceau de brique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Backsteinbrocken, schlechte Kritik

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - θραύσμα τούβλου, (καθομ.) μπηχτή, καρφί

Italiano (Italian)
pezzo di mattone, frecciata

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pedaço (m) de tijolo

Русский (Russian)
обломок кирпича, критическое замечание

Español (Spanish)
n. - trozo de ladrillo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - tegelstensbit

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
碎砖, 不逊之言, 砖片

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 碎磚, 不遜之言, 磚片

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 벽돌 조각

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 煉瓦のかけら, 酷評

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) استعمال قطع طوب كسلاح برميها, ألفاظ نابيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮חתיכת לבנה, התקפה מוחצת, ביקורת חריפה‬

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