like a ton of bricks

like a ton of bricks

With a sudden and significant impact. Mom will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you come home past curfew again. News that my daughter had cheated on her test hit me like a ton of bricks.

See also: brick, like, of, ton

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

*like a ton of bricks

Inf. like a great weight or burden. (*Typically: fall ~; hit ~; hit someone ~.) Suddenly, the truth hit me like a ton of bricks. The sudden tax increase hit like a ton of bricks. Everyone became angry.

See also: brick, like, of, ton

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

like a ton of bricks

Very heavily, without subtlety. For example, If he doesn't like your work, he'll come down on you like a ton of bricks. This expression, often coupled with come down on (def. 1), replaced the earlier thousand of brick or hundred of brick. The allusion in all these is to the considerable weight of such a load. [Early 1900s]

See also: brick, like, of, ton

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

like a ton of bricks

Like a ton of bricks is used to show that something happens very suddenly and forcefully. By mid-July, the dangers had hit Bobby like a ton of bricks. She was twenty when Orpen met her and he fell for her like a ton of bricks. Note: The metric measurement tonne is occasionally used instead of ton. Then reality hit her like a tonne of bricks.

See also: brick, like, of, ton

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

like a ton of bricks

mod. like something very ponderous and heavy. Hitting the back end of that truck was like hitting a ton of bricks.

See also: brick, like, of, ton

McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

like a ton of bricks, (come down)

Very heavily, unsubtly. This expression originated in early nineteenth-century America as “a thousand of brick,” presumably because bricks in such quantity were more commonly counted than weighed. “If folks is sassy, we walk right into ’em like a thousand o’ brick,” wrote Caroline Kirkland (Forest Life, 1842). Sometime in the early twentieth century it was replaced by ton, which has survived. Thus, to come down on like a ton of bricks means to reprimand or punish severely. This colloquialism dates from the first half of the 1900s. The novelist Graham Greene used it in Brighton Rock (1938): “If there’s any fighting I shall come down like a ton of bricks on both of you.”

See also: like, of, ton

The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer