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Taking these classifications from Oxford's Lexico:

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    I'm not seeing the term 'brick house' on the page you link. Can you clarify your assumptions?
    – Spagirl
    Commented Mar 24, 2022 at 14:30
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    @Laurel It does actually matter. We shouldn't have to go to another site to fully understand a question. The relevant parts of the definition should be excerpted, and the author should explain whether the issue is that there is no definition for "brick" as an adjective, or whether the issue arose from the fact there was an example sentence under the definition of brick as a noun. Not because we can't figure it out, but because that information makes the question more discoverable.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Mar 24, 2022 at 14:47
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    "Plastic" is also a noun.
    – philipxy
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 7:37
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    @Laurel, genuine question, is it the same kind of phrase? in 'brick house' brick describes what the house is made of, but in 'brick saw' it tells us what it is made for.
    – Spagirl
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 10:15
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    @philipxy: A noun which is mostly used to describe materials that are, ironically, not plastic(adj).
    – supercat
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 15:53

5 Answers 5

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This may have been addressed here before, but the overall answer is 'there is no consensus as to when certain words should be considered attributive nouns, and when they should be considered to have converted fully to adjectives', obviously in these instances used prenominally. 'Steel bridge' is a famous case in issue.

Nordquist at ThoughtCo discusses this issue:

  • "Webster's New International Dictionary . . . does not call every noun capable of attributive use an adjective but some like cash, land, mind etc. are labeled 'n(oun) often attrib(utive).'

However, the distinction between words that are 'n often attrib' and words that are 'adj' is not precise, as the editors themselves claim . . .. Moreover, even one author may provide different explanations for similar cases. Gove (1964:165), for example, considers the word zero in zero modification an adjective in the light of its attributive and predicative uses, despite the fact that it neither inflects for degree nor admits adverbial modification. However, surprisingly enough, for macaroni salad, apparently similar to the zero modification example, he argues that there appears to be a 'strong feeling' against macaroni as an adjective."

The usual tests for adjectives include gradability and intensifiability, but just as 'steel' in 'steel bridge' fails this

  • *a steeler bridge
  • *a very steel bridge

so does the obvious classifying adjective 'nuclear'

  • *a more nuclear reactor
  • *a very nuclear explosion.

edit: Again, the skilled commentary on a recent [November 2024] snooker match included

  • [It's unusual for a player at this level to leave] an absolutely penalty-kick opening red [ie a virtual gimme].

showing that intensification of attributive nouns is not unknown (and, in my opinion, can in certain instances in conversation be commendable).

For particular classifications, only asking say the compilers why they chose contrasting POSs for apparently identical usages will begin to resolve the question.

But checking in the usual respectable dictionaries (in particular AHD, Collins, RHK Webster's, Lexico, M-W, CD, Longmans, Macmillan) for POS assignment of 'plastic', all concur that full conversion to the adjective has now occurred, even for the basic 'made of plastic' ('plastic spoon') sense.

But for 'brick', Merriam-Webster has 'noun, often attributive', Collins calls the usage 'noun as modifier', and Lexico and Macmillan also list 'a brick wall' under [noun]. CD is, I'd say, unclear (though gives 'red-brick houses' under [noun]). AHD and Longman seem not to address the issue, but do not list adjective usages. However RHK Webster's classifies 'brick' in the senses 'made of, constructed with, or resembling bricks' [adjective].

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    Plastic is also a "true" adjective in its other senses: "that moulds" e.g. plastic art and "generating ideas; creative" e.g., a plastic imagination (OED)
    – DjinTonic
    Commented Mar 24, 2022 at 14:54
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    Linguists may disagree, but The Academy decides.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Mar 24, 2022 at 15:46
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    Thank you for another one of your positive contributions. I think this answer nails the issue: it reflects on the issue at a higher level, instead of assuming simple criteria or copying judgements from works of reference, as some linguists do. Linguistics is often 'soft' and not an exact, experimental science.
    – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Mar 24, 2022 at 18:25
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    @EdwinAshworth Recent years have seen various non-standard phrasings such as adding "not" to the end of a positive statement to negate it theatrically. "Very [noun phrase]" is one of them, used in a context such as "This is very you". Not all noun phrases work well with this construction, but nuclear seems to work better than steel. "Very Michigan" and "very '60s" sound better than "very bicycle" or "very wall".
    – Lawrence
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 2:16
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    IMO, the reason "very you", "very 60s" and "very Michigan" sound fine is because "you", "the 60s" and "Michigan" are identities - there is only one you, one decade called the 60s, and one Michigan - whereas there are many bicycles with different identities. Saying something is "very Michigan" means it is somehow specific to Michigan (or styles associated with Michigan) as opposed to other cities (i.e. other things of the same type as Michigan). In contrast, "very bicycle" doesn't sound right, because a quality cannot be specific to "bicycle" as opposed to... other bicycles?
    – kaya3
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 8:57
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The use of the word "plastic" as an adjective, and even the phrase "plastic surgery", substantially predate the invention of the materials which are commonly called "plastics", and the use of "plastic" as a noun referring to such materials. It's perhaps somewhat ironic that some of the first materials which were called "plastics", such as Bakelite (invented in 1907), weren't really very plastic at all once formed but were in fact quite brittle, unlike plasticine which was invented twenty years earlier.

I think the term "plastic" should properly be thought of as being an attributive noun when it is referring to a brittle synthetic resin, and an adjective when describing a characteristic of a material (e.g. "heat the object until it starts to become plastic") or process (e.g. "plastic deformation", "plastic surgery", etc.). While the primary usage of the word would be as an attributive noun, it can also be used as an adjective in a way that "brick" cannot.

Incidentally, a further distinction between meanings can be illustrated by considering the effect of the adverb "more". Saying something is "more plastic" would be more flexible but less elastic. To describe an object which is not flexible as being more like the synthetic resins which are commonly called "plastics", one would instead say "more plasticky".

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    A "hard plastic spoon" makes sense as a spoon made of hard plastic. A "hard, plastic spoon" would be correct if "plastic" were being used as an adjective, but to me this usage suggests the earlier usages of "plastic" meaning more or less "soft". It would of course be difficult to make a hard spoon out of plastic that was not hard.
    – Peter
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 6:26
  • 'X should be considered a noun (etc) when ...' becomes an untenable stance when conversion occurs. 'Funnest' and increasingly 'funner' are now considered acceptable, obviously the superlative and comparative of a new adjective. English is plastic.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 2, 2022 at 18:30
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    @EdwinAshworth: I was somewhat bummed, though, when I was playing Scrabble against the computer and it wouldn't accept "SLANTIER" as a valid word, even though it does accept e.g. "brownier" as a comparative form of "browny", an adjective meaning "somewhat brown". On the flip side, the term "via" is often used in electronics-related technical writing as a noun meaning "plated through-hole connection", with the plural form "vias", but OSPD doesn't recognize that usage either.
    – supercat
    Commented Apr 2, 2022 at 19:02
  • I'm not at all sure that OSPD is seen as a recognised authority on ELU. But arguments start when AHD say calls a usage that of a 'noun' while R H K Webster's considers it now to be that of an 'adjective'. We have to look for papers/articles on the subject, for instance the views of Denison in Pastor Gómez' Nominal Modifiers in Noun Phrase Structure: Evidence from Contemporary English.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Apr 3, 2022 at 18:15
  • @EdwinAshworth: My intended point was that the question of what prefix-stem-suffix combinations are "words" is rather vague, and offer examples where an entity that tries to reasonably judge such things may not make such distinctions the same way as a typical reader.
    – supercat
    Commented Apr 5, 2022 at 17:50
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It's a brick house because it is made out of bricks, which are objects. It is not saying the house is 'bricky'.

Consider the difference between 'a wooden house' and 'a log house'. Logs are objects. Wood is not.

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  • A paper airplane is made out of paper. But Lexico (lexico.com/definition/paper) does not give any definition of "paper" as an adjective.
    – peisander
    Commented Apr 2, 2022 at 4:30
  • @peisander: I'm a bit surprised that "paper" wouldn't have a definition as an adjective describing a lack of substantial and reliable value, as used in such expressions as "paper tiger" or "paper promises". Note that the phrase "paper promise" doesn't merely describe promise which is expressed in paper form (i.e. a contract), but rather a promise which is likely to be breached and is unlikely to be usefully enforceable. Otherwise, I think there's a presumption that if someone sees a reference to e.g. a "macguffium statue", and the only definition for "macguffium" describes a material...
    – supercat
    Commented Apr 5, 2022 at 19:32
  • ...they would interpret the word as an attributive adjective meaning "made of macguffium", even if the dictionary contains no such definition. If a dictionary had some other definition of the word as an adjective, then it should also explicitly include a "made of macguffium" definition, but otherwise it would be pointless to try to guess whether anyone had used the name of each possible material as an attributive adjective.
    – supercat
    Commented Apr 5, 2022 at 19:34
  • There is (or was until a few years ago) quite a debate among grammarians about the POS of 'steel' in 'steel bridge', so the rationale offered here needs supporting references.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Nov 16 at 15:09
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"Brick house" and "plastic bucket" differ through context, not gramattic form. If one is made of, and the other is meant for containing, they're different.

For example, "a wooden shed" is built of and a "wood shed" is built to contain wood.

Moving away, "a brick bucket" might mean a smaller bucket containing small bricks in a toy-box, or a bigger one containing bigger bricks on a building site, but never a bucket made of brick.

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Whether brick in brick house is listed in dictionaries as a noun, adjective, or both (as it currently is) doesn't matter because brick house is classified as a compound noun, unlike plastic bucket.

Once joined with house, brick would act attributively even if it were a verb. For example, take flophouse (or flop-house). It would not be listed as 'flop, v. often attributive 1. to rest one's weary bones...'

That is not the purpose of a dictionary. Its scope is limited, like all things. Parts of speech in a dictionary are group headings, not the POS in any particular context, unless provided in an example sentence.

That being said, the OED lists brick house as a noun formed by compounding brick (adj.) and house (n.). See dictionary excerpt (under First Known Use, brick house n.):

The earliest known use of the noun brick house is in the early 1600s.

OED's earliest evidence for brick house is from 1608, in Coll. Orders & Conditions Vndertakers.

brick house is formed within English, by compounding.

Etymons: brick *adj.*1, house *n.*1

[oed.com]

Compound nouns have a combined meaning. Some are far less distinct than others, or less specific, unique, different (all words found online). See following examples:

flop-house/flophouse: a fleabag motel

dog house/doghouse: an enclosed shelter for a dog

livingroom-->living room: generally a larger, more comfortable sitting room for gathering and possibly watching TV

brick house: any house "made of" or constructed with "mostly bricks" (The Three Little Pigs, AI, respectively).

brick house: any house with a brick exterior

brick house: short form of solid brick house (i.e. structural brick; per construction instructor, dept. head, former builder)

brick house: short form of brick veneer house (i.e., not structural brick but laid brick, not tiles; per the general public since the 1960s and builders in the last decade, or earlier)

"Brick House" (by the Commodores, 1977): 'She's a brick...house. She's mighty, mighty...' Somewhat self-explanatory.

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