Word.ws English Dictionary

have a brick in one's hat

have a brick in one's hat verb: to be drunk.

Verb

have a brick in one's hat (third-person singular simple present has a brick in one's hat, present participle having a brick in one's hat, simple past and past participle had a brick in one's hat)

  1. (New-England, idiomatic, obsolete) To be drunk.
    • Seated at the same table with our Mr.—, was a gentleman, who, to use the current phrase, ‘had a brick in his hat.’1846 November, “Magnelia Pedestria; or, Leaves from a Pedestrian’s Note Book”, in The Yale Literary Magazine, volume 12, number 1, page 33

Forms of have a brick in one's hat

third-person singular presenthas a brick in one's hat
present participlehaving a brick in one's hat
past participlehad a brick in one's hat
pasthad a brick in one's hat

Origin of have a brick in one's hat

See brick in one's hat.

Questions about have a brick in one's hat

What does have a brick in one's hat mean?
Have a brick in one's hat means to be drunk.
What part of speech is have a brick in one's hat?
Have a brick in one's hat is a verb.
What is the past tense of have a brick in one's hat?
The past tense of have a brick in one's hat is had a brick in one's hat.

Words near have a brick in one's hat in the dictionary

  1. have a bird
  2. have a bite
  3. have a blessed one
  4. have a bone in one's leg
  5. have a bone to pick
  6. have a brick in one's hat
  7. have a bun in the oven
  8. have a care
  9. have a clue
  10. have a cob on
  11. have a couple

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have a brick in one's hat (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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