Word.ws English Dictionary

run into a brick wall

run into a brick wall verb: to encounter an insurmountable barrier or obstacle to progress.

Verb

run into a brick wall (third-person singular simple present runs into a brick wall, present participle running into a brick wall, simple past ran into a brick wall, past participle run into a brick wall)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To encounter an insurmountable barrier or obstacle to progress.

Forms of run into a brick wall

third-person singular presentruns into a brick wall
present participlerunning into a brick wall
pastran into a brick wall
past participlerun into a brick wall

Questions about run into a brick wall

What does run into a brick wall mean?
Run into a brick wall means to encounter an insurmountable barrier or obstacle to progress.
What part of speech is run into a brick wall?
Run into a brick wall is a verb.
What is the past tense of run into a brick wall?
The past tense of run into a brick wall is ran into a brick wall.

Words near run into a brick wall in the dictionary

  1. run in the family
  2. run in with
  3. run ins
  4. run interference
  5. run into
  6. run into a brick wall
  7. run into one
  8. run into the ground
  9. run it up
  10. run it up the flagpole, to see who salutes
  11. run its course

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run into a brick wall (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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