• a large cellphone.

  by WalterGR, Sacramento, CA, USA, Sep 21 2009.

adjective

• very cold. Usually only used to describe the temperature of a place, e.g. the weather or indoors in a particular location.

  It's brick outside today.

  by Meeka B., Harlem, NY, USA, Mar 23 1999.

noun

• an unintelligent person. Derived from "dumb as a brick."

  That kid is such a brick!

  by tim g., Duluth, MN, USA, May 15 2002.

• a basketball shot in which the ball bounces off the backboard and/or hits the rim, but does not go though the net.

  He keeps on hitting bricks.

  Brick!

  by Fox, Queens, NY, USA, Jan 27 2003.

• a large quantity of drugs packaged in a brick shape, especially cocaine.

  I'm gonna buy some bricks tonight.

  by Terry S., Long Island City, NY, USA, Mar 08 2003.

• an external power transformer of the kind associated with laptops, modems, routers and other small computing appliances, especially one of the modern type with cords on both ends, as opposed to the type that plug directly into an outlet.

  by The Jargon File, Aug 14 2009.

• a piece of electronic or computer equipment that has been rendered unusable. Especially used to describe what happens to devices like routers or PDAs during a firmware update when the firmware image is damaged or power is lost. This term usually implies irreversibility, but equipment can sometimes be "unbricked."

  by The Jargon File, Aug 14 2009.

transitive verb

• to hit with bricks.

  James's car got bricked last night.

  by Key, Mar 21 2006.

• to render a (usually portable) electronic device unusable - i.e. as useful as a brick.

  I bricked my iPhone trying to jailbreak it.

  by WalterGR, Sacramento, CA, USA, Aug 03 2009.

intransitive verb

• to joke; KID.

  Ya buggin'.

  by Nelli M., Jul 27 2005.

• to be extremely excited.

  I'm buggin'!

  by Wendy R., Dallas, TX 75231, USA, May 10 2007.

• to react with extreme or irrational distress or composure; FREAK OUT.

  I was bugging after she got home.

  by Anonymous, Sep 28 2008.

noun

• An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of hardware, especially one that causes it to malfunction.

  There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out backwards.

  The system crashed because of a hardware bug.

  Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs. (i.e. Fred is a good guy, but he has a few personality problems).

  by The Jargon File, Aug 13 2009.

transitive verb

• to pester or annoy.

  Why do you keep bugging me? Go away.

  by Anonymous, Sep 28 2008.

origin

• Regarding the "unwanted and unintended property" meaning:
  
  Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer better known for inventing the programming language COBOL) liked to tell a story in which a technician solved a malfunction in the Harvard Mark II machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the contacts of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated "bug" in its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though, as she was careful to admit, she was not there when it happened). For many years the logbook associated with the incident and the actual bug in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC). The entire story, with a picture of the logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981), pp. 285--286. The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1947), reads, "1545 Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being found."
  
  This wording establishes that the term was already in use at the time in its current specific sense, and Hopper herself reports that the term "bug" was regularly applied to problems in radar electronics during WWII.
  
  Indeed, the use of "bug" to mean an industrial defect was already established in Thomas Edison's time, and a more specific and rather modern use can be found in an electrical handbook from 1896 (Hawkin's New Catechism of Electricity, Theo. Audel & Co.) which says, "The term "bug" is used to a limited extent to designate any fault or trouble in the connections or working of electric apparatus."
  
  It further notes that the term is said to have originated in quadruplex telegraphy and have been transferred to all electric apparatus.
  
  The latter observation may explain a common folk etymology of the term: that it came from telephone company usage, in which bugs in a telephone cable were blamed for noisy lines.
  
  Historians of the field inform us that the term was regularly used in the early days of telegraphy to refer to a variety of semi-automatic telegraphy keyers that would send a string of dots if you held them down. In fact, the Vibroplex keyers (which were among the most common of this type) even had a graphic of a beetle on them (and still do)! While the ability to send repeated dots automatically was very useful for professional morse code operators, these were also significantly trickier to use than the older manual keyers, and it could take some practice to ensure one didn't introduce extraneous dots into the code by holding the key down a fraction too long. In the hands of an inexperienced operator, a Vibroplex "bug" on the line could mean that a lot of garbled Morse would soon be coming your way.
  
  Further, the term has long been used among radio technicians to describe a device that converts electromagnetic field variations into acoustic signals. It is used to trace radio interference and look for dangerous radio emissions. Radio community usage derives from the roach-like shape of the first versions used by 19th century physicists. The first versions consisted of a coil of wire (roach body), with the two wire ends sticking out and bent back to nearly touch forming a spark gap (roach antennae). The bug is to the radio technician what the stethoscope is to the stereotypical medical doctor. This sense is almost certainly ancestral to modern use of "bug" meaning a covert monitoring device, but may also have contributed to the use of the term for the effects of radio interference itself.
  
  Actually, use of "bug" in the general sense of a disruptive event goes back to Shakespeare! (Henry VI, part III - Act V, Scene II: King Edward:
  
  "So, lie thou there. Die thou; and die our fear; For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all."
  
  In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary one meaning of "bug" is "A frightful object; a walking spectre." This is traced to "bugbear", a Welsh term for a variety of mythological monster which (to complete the circle) has recently been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through fantasy role-playing games. In any case, in jargon the word almost never refers to insects.
  
  A careful discussion of the etymological issues can be found in a paper by Fred R. Shapiro, 1987, "Entomology of the Computer Bug: History and Folklore", American Speech 62(4):376-378.
  
  As of late 1990, the NSWC still had the bug, but had unsuccessfully tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it. The present curator of their History of American Technology Museum didn't know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile exhibit. It was moved to the Smithsonian in mid-1991, but due to space and money constraints was not actually exhibited for years afterwards.

  by The Jargon File, Aug 13 2009.

noun

• The product of an unsuccessful attempt at burning a CD or DVD. That is, an unusable CD/DVD suitable only for use as a coaster.

  Damn, I tried to burn that movie but I keep making coasters.

  by The Jargon File, Sep 28 2009.

• CDs received in the mail from the likes of AOL.

  by The Jargon File, Sep 28 2009.

notes

• In the UK, "beermat" is often used in these senses.

  by The Jargon File, Sep 28 2009.

noun

• a computer that malfunctions frequently. See poo.

  Dude, what's up with the compooter? I need to get on the web.

  by Lamar Haslam, Buffalo, NY, USA, Jun 07 2007.

intransitive verb

• to sleep.

  I crashed over at his house last night.

  I was so tired after work I just crashed.

  by Anonymous, Oct 01 2001.

noun

• A sudden, usually drastic failure.

  My computer suffered a pretty bad crash.

  by The Jargon File, Aug 14 2009.

transitive verb

• to arrive unexpectedly and uninvited, esp. to a social function such as a party or ceremony. Origin: perhaps derived from a vehicular accident ("crash") which is both unexpected and unwanted.

  I hate people who crash my party

  by Ryan L., Washington, DC, USA, Oct 14 1998.

• To fail suddenly.

  Has the system just crashed?

  Something crashed the OS!

  by The Jargon File, Aug 14 2009.