brick-and-mortar

brick-and-mortar — adjective

1. describes a shop, bank, or other business that has a building where customers ca

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

describes a shop, bank, or other business that has a building where customers can visit and buy things in person, instead of only existing online

Example

The Hao family has run a brick-and-mortar grocery store in Taipei for thirty years.

Many brick-and-mortar bookstores now also sell books through their own websites.

contrast: brick-and-mortar vs online presence

Common collocations
  • brick-and-mortar store
  • brick-and-mortar shop
  • brick-and-mortar business
  • brick-and-mortar bank
  • brick-and-mortar retailer
  • brick-and-mortar location
Synonyms
  • physical

    shorter and more general; physical can also describe non-digital things beyond buildings, whereas brick-and-mortar specifically implies a permanent building

  • traditional

    focuses on the conventional way of doing business rather than the building itself; a traditional mail-order catalogue company is not brick-and-mortar

Antonyms
  • online

    the direct opposite; businesses that operate solely on the internet with no physical location

  • digital

    broader antonym covering any electronic or internet-based commerce, not just retail

Grammar Patterns

brick-and-mortar + noun

Common Mistakes

The company has three brick-and-mortars in the city.
The company has three brick-and-mortar stores in the city.
brick-and-mortar is an adjective, not a noun; it must modify a noun such as store or branch.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Brick-and-mortar emphasises the physical building as the place of business, drawing a clear contrast with online-only operations. Physical is a broader term — a physical store is one you can visit, but physical can also describe digital documents printed on paper. Traditional focuses on the conventional, long-established way of doing business rather than the building; a traditional shop could operate only by catalogue. In-person highlights face-to-face contact with staff or products, which is common in brick-and-mortar stores but describes an experience rather than a business type. High-street (British English) refers to shops on a town's main street, implying a physical presence in a particular location. For example, 'a brick-and-mortar bookstore' tells the reader it is not online-only, while 'a high-street bookstore' tells them it is on the main shopping street.

physical ↗traditional ↗in-person ↗high-street

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • brick-and-mortar vs online

Etymology

English

The phrase comes from the traditional building materials — bricks and mortar — used to construct permanent buildings. By the 19th century, 'bricks and mortar' had become a way to refer to buildings or physical property. During the 1990s internet boom, people began using 'brick-and-mortar' as a compound adjective to distinguish traditional physical businesses from the new online-only companies that had no physical stores at all.

First known use

1975

1975, in the meaning defined above