Word.ws English Dictionary

like a ton of bricks

like a ton of bricks prepositional phrase: very strongly; very heavily; often unexpectedly.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial, simile) Very strongly; very heavily; often unexpectedly.
    • If you're late she'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.
    • The Defendant then came down on me like a ton of bricks, as my eye will prove.1884 February 2, Punch, page 52

Examples of like a ton of bricks in a sentence

  • Senator Breaux: Did you see this coming on gradually, or did it hit you all of a sudden like a ton of bricks?2000, United States Senate, The Boomers are Coming: The Challenge of Family Caregiving : Hearing Before the Special Committee on Aging...
  • I fell for you like a ton of bricks when I first saw you onstage with the band.[…]"2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

Questions about like a ton of bricks

What does like a ton of bricks mean?
Like a ton of bricks means very strongly; very heavily; often unexpectedly.
How do you use like a ton of bricks in a sentence?
Senator Breaux: Did you see this coming on gradually, or did it hit you all of a sudden like a ton of bricks?
What part of speech is like a ton of bricks?
Like a ton of bricks is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like a ton of bricks in the dictionary

  1. like a scalded cat
  2. like a scalded dog
  3. like a shot
  4. like a spare prick at a wedding
  5. like a stuck pig
  6. like a ton of bricks
  7. like a train
  8. like a wet weekend
  9. like a whitehead
  10. like a wolf on the fold
  11. like all possessed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a ton of bricks (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-like a ton of bricks.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-like a ton of bricks.wav.

Cite this entry: “like a ton of bricks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/like_a_ton_of_bricks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.