A wall constructed from bricks laid in mortar, or figuratively, an immovable barrier or obstacle.
From 'brick' plus 'wall', from Old English 'weall' from Latin 'vallum' meaning 'rampart.' The figurative meaning emerged in 20th-century English to describe unmovable problems.
The phrase 'hit a brick wall' became wildly popular in business and psychology because brick walls in real life are genuinely unmovable—this metaphor works because people immediately understand that you can't push through a real brick wall, so your approach must change.
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