blow up

British  

verb

1. to explode or cause to explode

2. (tr) to increase the importance of (something)

   they blew the whole affair up

3. (intr) to come into consideration

   we lived well enough before this thing blew up

4. (intr) to come into existence with sudden force

   a storm had blown up

5. informal to lose one's temper (with a person)

6. informal (tr) to reprimand (someone)

7. informal (tr) to enlarge the size or detail of (a photograph)

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noun

1. an explosion

2. informal an enlarged photograph or part of a photograph

3. informal a fit of temper or argument

4. Also called: blowing up.  informal a reprimand

blow up Idioms  

1. Explode or cause to explode. For example, The squadron was told to blow up the bridge , or Jim was afraid his experiment would blow up the lab . The term is sometimes amplified, as in blow up in one's face . [Late 1500s]

2. Lose one's temper, as in I'm sorry I blew up at you . Mark Twain used this metaphor for an actual explosion in one of his letters (1871): “Redpath tells me to blow up. Here goes!” [ Colloquial ; second half of 1800s]

3. Inflate, fill with air, as in If you don't blow up those tires you're sure to have a flat . [Early 1400s]

4. Enlarge, especially a photograph, as in If we blow up this picture, you'll be able to make out the expressions on their faces . [c. 1930]

5. Exaggerate the importance of something or someone, as in Tom has a tendency to blow up his own role in the affair . This term applies the “inflate” of def. 3 to importance. It was used in this sense in England from the early 1500s to the 1700s, but then became obsolete there although it remains current in America.

6. Collapse, fail, as in Graduate-student marriages often blow up soon after the couple earn their degrees . [ Slang ; mid-1800s]

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Example Sentences

The other option available to Toronto was one made popular by the Philadelphia 76ers: Blow up the roster and stock up on draft picks—”trusting the process,” if you will.

From Slate • Jun. 14, 2019

Blow up a balloon to about the size of a softball.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast-day: for this was a statute for Israel, a law of the God of Jacob."

From Palestine or the Holy Land From the Earliest Period to the Present Time by Russell, Michael

The history of toll bars is not wanting in romance: "Blow up for the gate," would say the coachman to the guard, when drawing near to a "pike" in the darkness of night.

From The King's Post Being a volume of historical facts relating to the posts, mail coaches, coach roads, and railway mail services of and connected with the ancient city of Bristol from 1580 to the present time by Tombs, Robert Charles

Then the order of Jacobs, the mate, rang out: "Blow up the ship!" he said.

From Four American Indians King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola by Perry, F. M. (Frances Melville)

Related Words

• blast
• bomb
• burst
• detonate
• dynamite
• erupt
• go off
• rupture
• shatter