Word.ws English Dictionary

brick and mortar

brick and mortar adjective: buildings and property for the conduct of business, particularly in the sale of retail goods to the general public. (Used to contrast an Internet-based sales operation that lacks customer-oriented store fronts and a "traditional" one for which most capital investment might be in the building infrastructure.).

Adjective

brick and mortar (not comparable)

  1. Buildings and property for the conduct of business, particularly in the sale of retail goods to the general public. (Used to contrast an Internet-based sales operation that lacks customer-oriented store fronts and a "traditional" one for which most capital investment might be in the building infrastructure.)
    • Brick and mortar retail stores face online competition.
    • E-commerce is not the kiss of death for big, traditional brick-and-mortar business.2000, Judy Kong, in a report on the ICE Conference, "Non Traditional Clicks and Mortar Businesses: (Dinosaurs) Learn to Fly"
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see brick, and, mortar.

Noun

brick and mortar (uncountable)

  1. (UK) Buildings, especially domestic housing.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see brick, and, mortar.

Synonyms of brick and mortar

Antonyms

Forms of brick and mortar

alternative formbrick-and-mortar
alternative formbricks and mortar
alternative formbricks-and-mortar

Questions about brick and mortar

What does brick and mortar mean?
Brick and mortar means buildings and property for the conduct of business, particularly in the sale of retail goods to the general public. (Used to contrast an Internet-based sales operation that lacks customer-oriented store fronts and a "traditional" one for which most capital investment might be in the building infrastructure.).
What part of speech is brick and mortar?
Brick and mortar can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near brick and mortar in the dictionary

  1. Briceno
  2. Bricenos
  3. brichka
  4. brichkas
  5. brick
  6. brick and mortar
  7. brick breaker
  8. brick breakers
  9. brick by brick
  10. brick cheese
  11. brick cheeses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brick and mortar (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “brick and mortar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brick_and_mortar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.