An Americanism dating back to 1930–35
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Other chapters, however, seem more peripheral, such as those that give blow-by-blow accounts of Russian-Qing diplomacy over the disputed Amur region far to the east of Mongolia.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 19, 2025
If you’re into following the blow-by-blow process of how science works, perhaps hearing researchers get excited about their work is interesting.
From Slate • Sep. 18, 2024
It was painstaking, and sometimes dull, and included a blow-by-blow account about how checks were approved, then cut, then mailed, then signed, then returned.
From Seattle Times • May 10, 2024
British newspapers carried blow-by-blow accounts of the trial with headlines like 'Mussoorie murder trial', 'hotel mystery' and the 'crystal gazing trial'.
From BBC • Jan. 13, 2024
I’m not prudish, Kitty, and yet every time they give a blow-by-blow account of their trips to the bathroom, which they often do, my whole body rises in revolt.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
