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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

Here was almost a case of being required to make bricks without straw.

From Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements by Washington, Booker T.

My mother told me that this was something like asking a person to make bricks without straw.

From The Domestic Cat by Stables, Gordon