From French via Dutch 'bricke' (broken piece) — brick-making vanished from Britain for a millennium after the Romans left.
A small rectangular block of fired or sun-dried clay, used in building.
From Middle French brique (brick, a fragment), from Middle Dutch bricke or brike (brick, tile, a fragment), related to the verb breken (to break) — a brick being conceptually a fragment, a cut or moulded block of clay. The Dutch root derives from Proto-Germanic *brekanan (to break), from PIE *bhreg- (to break). The same PIE root produced Latin frangere (to break), giving
Before the word 'brick' arrived from French in the 15th century, English speakers used 'tile' for both roof tiles and wall bricks — the Old English word was 'tīgele,' borrowed from Latin 'tēgula.' The Romans introduced both the building material and its Latin name to Britain. When the Roman brick-making tradition collapsed after 410 CE, England went nearly a thousand years