blow-up
[blow- 1.]
1. = blow-out 1.
| 1809 W. Gell Let. 22 Jan. in C. K. Sharpe Lett. (1888) I. 355 There won't be any quarrel, so you need not fear. The only chance is Keppel making a blow up when she abuses me. 1813 Ld. Castlereagh Let. in Sir R. Wilson Diary (1861) II. 201 W. and he must not have any connexion together or there will be a blow up. 1834 J. Wilson Noct. Ambr. (1864) IV. 133 O'Connell and Littleton had a blow-up and abused each other like pickpockets. 1846 Sol. Smith Theatrical Apprent. 132 When we had got their jealousy and hatred excited to a proper pitch, it was agreed that a regular ‘blow up’ between the two should end the joke. 1900 H. Lawson Over Sliprails 46 Some others were making a night of it..as they'd been doing pretty often lately—and went on doing till there was a blow-up about it. 1947 Steinbeck Wayward Bus 56 After the initial blow-up the subject had never verbally come up again, but her mother disapproved with her face. |
b. An explosion.
| 1807 W. Irving et al. Salmagundi (1811) xiii. 58 Our citizens did not refuse the invitation of the society to the blow up. 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. xxvi. 260 It was after the case-filling blow-up, when I first see you. 1867 M. Arnold Let. 14 Dec. (1895) I. 376 Every one is full of the Clerkenwell blow-up. |
2. Sugar Manuf. The place where the raw sugar is dissolved; also attrib., as blow-up cistern, blow-up pan, a vessel used in dissolving raw sugar by ‘blowing’ or forcing steam through it.
| 1833 B. Silliman Man. Sugar Cane 77 The vats, or blow-ups, as they are called, containing the sugar,..are heated by steam tubes passing through them. 1845 Dodd Brit. Manuf. V. 108 A steam-pipe, in communication with a boiler, is enclosed within the ‘blow-up cistern’ [for dissolving sugar]; and..steam is forced or ‘blown’ by its own pressure into the solution. a 1877 Knight Dict. Mech., Blow-up Pan. (Sugar-Machinery.) 1886 Harper's Mag. June 82/2 These ‘mixers’ or ‘blow-ups’ are really great stew-pans set in the ground. 1935 Discovery Dec. 363/2 The resultant mixture..becomes a syrup known as ‘blow-up thick juice’. |
3. A photographic enlargement (cf. blow v.1 23 c). colloq. (orig. U.S.).
| 1945 Life 9 July 100/2 (caption) The wall behind bar has blowups of the arm insignia of every U.S. division in Europe. 1946 Electronics Sept. 157 (caption) Big Blow-up... Electronics and Photography work together to produce records like this 47,500-diameter magnification. 1957 New Yorker 5 Oct. 34/2 Gigantic photographic blowups of the more important candidates. |