A brick is a hardened block of clay used for building and paving. Usually rectangular, bricks are made in standard sizes by machines that either mold bricks or cut off extruded sections of stiff clay which are conveyed into a continuously operating kiln where they are baked at temperatures of up to 1,300°C (2,372°F).

The first, sun-dried bricks were used in the Tigris-Euphrates basin about 5,000 years ago. Mechanized processes replaced the old hand-molding methods during the 19th century.