blow-up

See also: blowup and blow up

English

Etymology

Deverbal from blow up.

Pronunciation

  • Audio (US):(file)

Adjective

blow-up (not comparable)

  1. Inflatable; able to be blown up.
    The kids played with a blow-up sea-monster in the pool.

Derived terms

Noun

blow-up (plural blow-ups)

  1. (informal) An explosion (physical or emotional).
    I heard Jen's blow-up from the next room.
    • 2023 April 26, Jordan Valinsky, “Bud Light sales are falling, but distributors say they’re sticking by the brand”, in CNN‎[1]:
      But BBD said that “several” wholesalers it spoke with said they are “waiting out the storm” — expecting the backlash to fade a few weeks following the initial controversy, as many similar blow-ups have in the past.
    • 2023 November 25, Richard Waters, John Thornhill, “Tech's philosophical rift over AI”, in FT Weekend, Big Read, page 6:
      How OpenAI resolves the blow-up at its highest levels may help show how well its competitors, in the race for human-level AI, can be expected to handle the deep contradictions in their work between progress and safety.
  2. (informal) An enlargement (e.g. of a photograph).
    Make a blow-up of the chart so we have more room to draw on it.

Alternative forms

Anagrams

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