make bricks without straw
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English
Etymology
From Exodus 5:18: "Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks." (NIV)
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Verb
make bricks without straw (third-person singular simple present makes bricks without straw, present participle making bricks without straw, simple past and past participle made bricks without straw)
- (idiomatic) To accomplish a task without the proper materials or under unreasonable conditions; to do the impossible.
- 1938, Jonas A. Jonasson, Bricks without straw: the story of Linfield College, page 168:
- The founders did more than "make bricks without straw; they dreamed of a great cathedral and laid the foundations for it.
- 2008, Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, →ISBN, page 30:
- To call on the owners of little farms, the tradesmen, labourers and sailors to pay their proportion of a [£20,000] tax, when perhaps there is not half that sum in circulation is something harder than being forced to make bricks without straw,” he wrote; "it is to make them without clay."
- 2014, Peter F. Serra, Snapshots of Inspiration, →ISBN, page 170:
- The problems that we may find ourselves confronted with may be similar to a make bricks without straw condition, imposed by not only others but in large measure ourselves.
Usage notes
- Often expressed in the proverbial form: you can't make bricks without straw.
Alternative forms
See also
Further reading
- “you can t make bricks without straw”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
- “you can’t make bricks without straw”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.