talk to a brick wall

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

to try to communicate with someone who is unresponsive or unwilling to listen

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

cố gắng giao tiếp với người không phản hồi hoặc không muốn nghe

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: speaking to an inanimate object
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

I've been trying to talk to him about it, but it's like talking to a brick wall

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “talk to a brick wall” mean?

to try to communicate with someone who is unresponsive or unwilling to listen Literally: speaking to an inanimate object

Is “talk to a brick wall” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.