BLOW UP

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does blow up mean? 

• BLOW UP (verb)
  The verb BLOW UP has 8 senses:

1. cause to burst with a violent release of energy

2. make large

3. get very angry and fly into a rage

4. add details to

5. burst and release energy as through a violent chemical or physical reaction

6. exaggerate or make bigger

7. fill with gas or air

8. to swell or cause to enlarge

  Familiarity information: BLOW UP used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BLOW UP (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to burst with a violent release of energy

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

blow up; detonate; explode; set off

Context example:

We exploded the nuclear bomb

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

change integrity (change in physical make-up)

Cause:

blow up; detonate; explode (burst and release energy as through a violent chemical or physical reaction)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "blow up"):

fulminate (cause to explode violently and with loud noise)

dynamite (blow up with dynamite)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

blowup (a violent release of energy caused by a chemical or nuclear reaction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make large

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

blow up; enlarge; magnify

Context example:

blow up an image

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

increase (make bigger or more)

Domain category:

photography; picture taking (the act of taking and printing photographs)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

reduce (make smaller)

Derivation:

blowup (a photographic print that has been enlarged)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Get very angry and fly into a rage

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

blow a fuse; blow one's stack; blow up; combust; flip one's lid; flip one's wig; fly off the handle; go ballistic; have a fit; have kittens; hit the ceiling; hit the roof; lose one's temper; throw a fit

Context example:

Spam makes me go ballistic

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

rage (feel intense anger)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

blowup (an unrestrained expression of emotion)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Add details to

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

aggrandise; aggrandize; blow up; dramatise; dramatize; embellish; embroider; lard; pad

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

amplify; exaggerate; hyperbolise; hyperbolize; magnify; overdraw; overstate (to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "blow up"):

glorify (cause to seem more splendid)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something with something

Sentence example:

They won't blow up the story

Sense 5

Meaning:

Burst and release energy as through a violent chemical or physical reaction

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

blow up; detonate; explode

Context example:

The Molotov cocktail exploded

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 6

Meaning:

Exaggerate or make bigger

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

amplify; blow up; expand; inflate

Context example:

The charges were inflated

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

increase (make bigger or more)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "blow up"):

puff up (make larger or distend)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 7

Meaning:

Fill with gas or air

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

blow up; inflate

Context example:

inflate a balloons

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

expand (make bigger or wider in size, volume, or quantity)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "blow up"):

reflate (inflate again)

billow; heave; surge (rise and move, as in waves or billows)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 8

Meaning:

To swell or cause to enlarge

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

blow up; puff; puff out; puff up

Context example:

puffed out chests

Hypernyms (to "blow up" is one way to...):

intumesce; swell; swell up; tumefy; tumesce (expand abnormally)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sentence example:

Did his feet blow up?

 Context examples 

Pulsars are one of several types of stellar remnants that are left over when stars blow up in supernova explosions.

(Pulse of a Dead Star Powers Intense Gamma Rays, NASA)

On this sea a storm might blow up at any moment and destroy us.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Bottom line is we really think our merging star hypothesis should be taken seriously right now, and we should be using the next few years to study this intensely so that if it does blow up we will know what led to that explosion, Molnar said.

(Star Explosion Could Change Night Sky, VOA News)

I delivered up both my pistols in the same manner as I had done my scimitar, and then my pouch of powder and bullets; begging him that the former might be kept from fire, for it would kindle with the smallest spark, and blow up his imperial palace into the air.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As I was willing enough to know, we went out with this object, leaving my aunt behind; who would trust herself, she said, in no such place, and who, I think, regarded all Courts of Law as a sort of powder-mills that might blow up at any time.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then I do it again and again, and blow up the bellows and feed the forge, and rasp a hoof or two, and there is a day’s work done, and every day the same as the other.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yet never did it ring more loudly than that night, as I watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the coals, blow up the fire, and cook the evening meal.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And to set forth the valour of my own dear countrymen, I assured him, that I had seen them blow up a hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship, and beheld the dead bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diversion of the spectators.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)