‘Bricks and mortar’ describes something solid and physical, most often a building or a piece of property, as opposed to something abstract or intangible. In business, it usually marks out a company that trades from an actual shop or office rather than existing only online, a distinction that has become sharper since the rise of internet retailing (see ‘bricks and clicks’ for the hybrid model that combines both). In finance, “bricks and mortar” is shorthand for property held as an investment, set against stocks, bonds or cash. The phrase can also be stretched further, to mean anything basic, solid and essential to a thing’s character, even where no actual building is involved.
What’s the origin of the phrase ‘bricks and mortar’?
The literal meaning needs no explaining: bricks bound together with mortar are the basic material of ordinary building work, so the pairing was a natural shorthand for construction and property long before it took on any figurative sense. The figurative use was established by the mid nineteenth century. In 1865 Matthew Arnold used the phrase to mean something basic and essential to a place’s character, writing of “Margate, that bricks-and-mortar image of British Protestantism.”
The sense that has proved most durable is the one that treats the phrase as shorthand for premises you can walk into. That is why it now sits so comfortably in contrast to internet-only businesses, and why it also does service as a description of property bought and held as an investment rather than lived in.
There is also a rhyming slang use of “bricks and mortar” for “daughter,” which works because in British pronunciation “mortar” rhymes with “daughter.” No dated first printing for this slang sense has been traced, so it is best treated as part of the wider tradition covered under ‘Cockney rhyming slang’ rather than a separately documented coinage. The everyday sense, meaning solid property and physical premises, remains far the more common one in use today.