Also 5 brekeleyer, 5–6 bryche leyer. [f. BRICK sb. + LAYER.] One who lays the bricks in building.
Bricklayer’s itch: a cutaneous disease produced on the hands of bricklayers through contact with lime.
1485. Catal. Harleian MSS. (1808), I. 285/1. Licence … to reteigne Richard Chezholme brekeleyer.
c. 1500. Cocke Lorell’s B. (1843), 9. Tylers, bryche leyers, harde hewers.
1562. Act 5 Eliz., iv. § 30. The Art or Occupation of a … Brick-maker, Bricklayer, Tyler.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Conv. betw. B. J. & W. D., Wks. 224. Ben Johnson … was … put to another craft, viz. to be a bricklayer.
1824. Byron, Juan, XVI. lviii. A modern Goth, I mean a Gothic Bricklayer of Babel, call’d an architect.
1841. Marryat, Poacher, iii. He took up the profession of a bricklayer’s labourer.
Hence † Bricklayery [cf. carpentry] = next.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), Title, The Arts of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, Turning, Bricklayery.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3922/4. The Arts of … Turning and Bricklayery.
