make bricks without straw

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

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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)

1. (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

• make bricks without straws

See also

• you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs

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.