blow off
See also: blowoff and blow-off
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Verb
blow off (third-person singular simple present blows off, present participle blowing off, simple past blew off, past participle blown off)
- (transitive) To vent, usually, to reduce pressure in a container.
- The radioactivity was released when they blew off steam from the containment vessel.
- (intransitive) To let steam escape through a passage provided for the purpose.
- The engine or steamer is blowing off.
- 1961 March, ""Balmore"", “Driving and firing modern French steam locomotives”, in Trains Illustrated, page 146:
- The 1 in 200 climb to Survilliers was surmounted with easy competence, the constant speed being just short of 60 m.p.h., the water level (by design) just under half a glass and the steam pressure approximately 275 lb/sq in, or near the blowing-off point.
- (intransitive, euphemistic, UK) To pass gas; to break wind, to fart.
- Women have strong ones and men blow off far more often. It's a biological fact.
- (idiomatic) to shirk or disregard (a duty or person).
- I decided to blow off the meeting and leave early.
- We've both been blowing off Peter all day: he's really boring.
- (transitive) To forcibly disconnect something by use of a firearm or explosive device.
- Her leg was blown off by a landmine.
- (transitive) To remove something by blowing on it.
- 1944 May and June, “The Why and the Wherefore: Locomotive Soot Blowers”, in Railway Magazine, page 194:
- In order to deal with deposits of soot on boiler-tubes while running, especially if poor coal is in use, locomotives are often now provided with blowers on the firebox back-plate which can be made to discharge a jet of high pressure steam towards the firebox tubeplates; this has the effect of loosening and blowing off the soot deposits.
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Synonyms
- (pass gas): break wind, fart; see also Thesaurus:flatulate
Translations
pass gas
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See also
- blow off steam
Anagrams
- bowl-off