blow up
Formsblows up, blowing up, blew up, blown up
Formsblows up, blowing up, blew up, blown up
- 1
- 2To make something or someone explode, or to destroy a thing, or maim or kill a person, by means of an explosion.
Retreating troops blew up the railroad bridges behind them to slow the advance.
Insurgents planned to blow up the convoy's lead vehicle with a roadside bomb.
Note
Add a cause and the plain "explode" becomes this one: the bridge blew up, but the troops blew up the bridge. Figuratively it covers wrecking something that cannot literally burst; John H. Cochrane, writing in 2011, imagines a government that will blow up the economy.
- 3To fill something with air so that it swells, either by blowing into it or by using a pump.
We spent the evening blowing up air mattresses for the guests.
You'll need an electric pump to blow up a raft that size.
Similarinflate
Oppositedeflate
Note
Pushing air in is the idea, and it reaches fires as well as balloons: in Jack London's The Sea-Wolf (1904) the narrator watches her blow up the fire, breathing the coals back to flame. Up can follow a noun object or precede it (blow the raft up, blow up the raft), but a pronoun goes between: blow it up. Before a noun it is hyphenated, as in a blow-up mattress.
- 4
- 5To become very angry all of a sudden and lose one's temper.
The coach blew up at the referee after the second bad call.
I knew she'd blow up if she found out I'd borrowed the car without asking.
Note
Temper pictured as a blast: this is casual speech, natural among friends and too loose for formal writing, where lose one's temper does the job. The person on the receiving end follows at, as in Dad blew up at me, and the outburst itself becomes the noun blow-up.
- 6To become widely popular in a very short time.
The band played tiny clubs for years before their second album blew up.
Everyone says the new taco place is about to blow up, so go before the lines get long.
Note
Sudden fame is what this slang names, whether it comes to an artist, an album or a new steakhouse. It is often a forecast rather than a report (about to blow up, going to blow up), though Eminem's "My Name Is" (1999) uses it for fame already arrived. In formal writing, become popular fits better.
- 7To flood a phone or similar device with calls, texts, or notifications until it is briefly unusable or its owner is exasperated.
Reporters blew up her phone for days after the story broke.
If the flight is delayed again, my mom will blow up my phone asking where I am.
Similaroverload
Note
A phone or pager is the object, and whoever keeps calling or texting is the subject: they blew up my phone all night, keep blowin' up my celly. The tone is usually exasperated, as with the group chat that has to be muted, and it belongs firmly to casual talk.
- 8Of a phone or similar device, to receive so many calls, texts, or notifications that it is briefly unusable or exasperates its owner.
The moment the engagement photos went online, her phone was blowing up with congratulations.
Our phones blow up with alerts every time the server goes down.
Note
Phones and pagers are the subject here, and the progressive is the usual form: my phone is blowing up, my phone has been blowing up since lunch. Pagers did it too; in Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" (1992), the narrator's pager is still blowing up partway home.
- 9An explosion, either a physical blast or an emotional one such as a sudden angry outburst or a bitter dispute.
The coach's blow-up at the press conference was replayed on every sports channel.
The blow-up at the refinery could be heard ten miles away.
Similaroutburst, explosion, blast
Note
News writing stretches it past the bang and the tantrum to public rows and crises: a brand's backlash that wholesalers expect to fade, the fight at the top of OpenAI. Used that way it is informal but at home in journalism, and it suggests trouble that erupts suddenly and in public view.
- 10An enlarged copy of something, such as a photograph.
A poster-size blow-up of the photo hung behind the stage at the memorial.
The lawyer showed the jury blow-ups of the signed contract.
Similarenlargement
- 11Made so that it can be filled with air, by mouth or with a pump.
Guests slept on blow-up mattresses in the living room.
A giant blow-up snowman stood on the neighbors' lawn all December.
Similarinflatable
Note
The verb's two words take a hyphen when they stand before a noun: you blow up a mattress, then sleep on a blow-up mattress. The same hyphen marks the nouns for an outburst and an enlargement. As an adjective it is not comparable, and inflatable says the same thing more formally.
- 12To end in complete and disastrous failure.
The merger blew up at the last minute when the two CEOs clashed over control.
He knew the scheme might blow up in his face, but he went ahead anyway.
Similarcollapse, fail, founder
Oppositesucceed
Note
Its natural home is the idiom blow up in someone's face, used when a plan backfires and the damage lands on the person who chose it: don't come crying to me when it blows up in your face. On its own it suits deals, mergers and schemes that collapse outright.
- 13
- 14To blow in an upward direction, or up along something, in the ordinary literal sense of the two words.
A cold wind blew up the valley from the river, rattling the shutters.
Smoke from the stove should blow up the chimney, not back into the room.
Note
Here up is an ordinary preposition: wind blows up a valley, smoke up a chimney, and a pronoun can follow it, as in blow up it at an angle. The "blow to pieces" verb works the other way, putting the pronoun in the middle: blow it up. The pairing is old, since Middle English had blow up beside an earlier upblowen, which survives as upblow.
- 15Of a hangout, to become overwhelmed with more people or traffic than it can handle.
The skate spot under the bridge blew up last year; now it's crowded every afternoon.
Good fishing spots blow up fast once word gets around, so enjoy this one while it lasts.
Similaroverload
- 16To flood a place, especially a hangout, with visitors or traffic by letting others know it exists.
Keep this bar to yourself; if you tell the whole office, you'll blow up my spot.
A travel blogger blew up the hidden waterfall, and now it's mobbed every weekend.
Similaroverload
Note
It lives mostly in two fixed phrases, blow up the spot and blow up someone's spot, often as a warning: Don't blow up my spot! The harm is done by telling, not by visiting; the place is a hangout few people know, and spreading the word is what ruins it. Keep it to casual speech.
- 17To overwhelm a device, system or establishment with unexpectedly heavy demand, use, activity or traffic.
A runaway script blew up the payment servers within minutes of launch.
One viral post can blow up a small bakery's online ordering system.
Similaroverload
Note
The cause is the subject and the system the object: a runaway script blows up the servers, a viral post blows up a bakery's ordering site. Turn it round so the system is the subject, as in the servers blew up, and it becomes the "be overwhelmed" use. Overload and take down say the same thing in neutral terms.
- 18Of a device, system or establishment, to be overwhelmed by unexpectedly heavy demand, use, activity or traffic.
During the storm, the city's dispatch system blew up under the flood of incoming reports.
Checkout pages tend to blow up in the first hour of a big sale, leaving shoppers staring at a spinning wheel.
Similaroverload
- 19To grow much fatter or rounder in a short time.
After the injury he stopped training and blew up to nearly 250 pounds.
Some actors blow up for a role and slim down again once filming ends.
Similarballoon
Note
A blunt piece of slang that pictures the body swelling like a balloon. It fits casual talk about one's own weight or an actor bulking up for a role, but said about someone else it can sound mocking; put on weight is the neutral choice.
- 20Of a function, to increase without bound, tending toward infinity, as its argument or a parameter approaches some value.
Near the pole the integrand blows up, so the integral has to be handled with care.
For some starting values the solutions blow up in finite time, and the model stops making physical sense.
Similardiverge
Note
Mathematicians and physicists use it as working shorthand, looser than diverges or tends to infinity. It describes behavior near a point: 1/x blows up as x approaches zero yet stays finite everywhere else. In physics, a calculation that blows up has returned an infinite answer, usually a sign that something has gone wrong.
- 21In a race, to go into oxygen debt and lose the ability to keep up the pace.
He attacked too hard on the first climb and blew up long before the summit.
Riders who chase every early breakaway often blow up in the final kilometers.
Note
Riders blow up when they go harder than the body can sustain, often on a climb, and suddenly cannot hold the pace. Cyclists keep it apart from bonking, which is running out of fuel on a long ride after eating too little: blowing up comes from the effort itself, not from an empty tank.
- 22To fill a place with a foul smell by passing gas, using the toilet, or the like.
My brother managed to blow up the bathroom right before the guests arrived.
Somebody blew it up in the elevator, and everyone got off at the next floor.
Note
The joke is an explosion, and the object is the room or a vague it rather than the smell: I really blew it up, he blew up the bathroom. Bomb works the same way, and both belong with friends and family, not in polite company.
- 23Of a referee or other official in a sport, to blow the whistle.
The referee blew up for offside, and the goal didn't count.
Players are taught never to stop running until the official blows up.
Note
The whistle goes unsaid: the official simply blows up. For gives the reason, as in the referee blew up for offside, for a penalty or for halftime, so the same two words can stop play for a foul, a break or the end of the match.
- 24To puff someone up with pride, self-conceit or a similar feeling.
Years of easy success had blown him up with self-importance.
blown up with high conceits engendering pride
1667, John Milton, Paradise LostNote
Pride is pictured as air filling a person, and the use now sounds dated. Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) has "blown up with high conceits engendering pride". With names the swelling feeling or what feeds it: blown up with conceit, blown up with flattery. Today puffed up carries the same picture in plainer words.
- 25To scold someone fiercely and angrily.
When the boy broke the window, his uncle blew him up soundly and sent him to bed.
#*: I have blown him up well — nobody can say I wink at what he does.
1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], MiddlemarchNote
Here the anger lands directly on a person, who is blown up rather than blown up at: it is the dated, transitive counterpart of the "lose your temper" meaning. In George Eliot's Middlemarch, "I have blown him up well" means a sound scolding; today one would say I blew up at him.
- 26To excite or stir up something, such as a quarrel.
Pamphleteers did their best to blow up a dispute between the rival churches.
Agitators traveled from town to town to blow up discontent among the workers.
Note
The object is a quarrel or ill feeling rather than a thing: to blow up a contention is to fan it until it grows, much as breath makes embers flare. The use is dated, and stir up is the modern way to say it.
- 27To take an intoxicating drug, or to get high on one.
Note
This is dated drug slang, and a modern reader could easily take it for a burst of temper or sudden fame instead. Get high says the same thing plainly, and a writer reviving this use needs context that makes the drug meaning clear.
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Origins
From Middle English blow up, blowe up, dissimilated forms of earlier Middle English upblowen (whence English upblow), equivalent to blow + up. Compare Dutch opblazen, German aufblasen, Swedish blåsa upp and Icelandic blása upp (all “to blow up, inflate”), and Gothic ufblēsan (“to blow or puff up”).
Formed from the phrasal verb blow up.