make bricks without straw

Idioms  

1. Perform a task without essential materials or means, as in Writing a report without the current data is making bricks without straw. This expression alludes to straw as a material necessary in early brick manufacturing. [Early 1600s]

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Example Sentences

In the latter, you are often expected to make bricks without straw, but in the former, to grow lemons without a tree.

From Time Magazine Archive

Like the rest of us, newspaper men cannot be expected to make bricks without straw.

From Time Magazine Archive

After all, to build his air force Marshal Milch had to make bricks without straw.

From Time Magazine Archive

I was set to make bricks without straw.

From The Sins of the Father A Romance of the South by Dixon, Thomas

Why did the Israelites complain so much at having to make bricks without straw?

From A Study of Hawthorne by Lathrop, George Parsons