🗓️ Idiom: Hit a Brick Wall
💬 Meaning
- To suddenly stop making progress.
- It means facing a barrier or problem that’s difficult to overcome.
🧠 Example Sentences
- We hit a brick wall when trying to reduce shipping times without extra costs.
- The negotiations hit a brick wall over the delivery terms.
- Our expansion plans hit a brick wall due to new regulations.
🏛️ Origin
This idiom refers to the experience of physically running into a solid wall, which stops you immediately. In business, it describes situations where efforts or progress suddenly stop because of a major obstacle.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
Our plan to open a second warehouse __________ when the city denied the building permit.
Answer
hit a brick wall
2. Choose the correct meaning of “hit a brick wall”:
A) To make fast progress
B) To face a major obstacle
C) To take a break
D) To build something new
Answer
B) To face a major obstacle
3. Rewrite the sentence using the idiom:
“We couldn’t continue the project because of a serious problem.” → Change the sentence using: hit a brick wall
Answer
We couldn’t continue the project because we hit a brick wall.