Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to end a relationship with someone.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 152/1: I’m glad that I’ve ‘blewed’ her, for if we’d ‘palled in’ I would have to continue this game in order to bring in a living.

2. to waste, usu. money; thus blew one’s screw v., to spend all one’s wages at once.

1846		Swell’s Night Guide 61: This arnt a right cooter then, cos I copped it? I s’pose it won’t blue for gatter and short — cos a prig raddies it to a rum cull of a lush kid.
1852		Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: Ven a cove vould drop you a meg, he would tell you to lay it out to the best hadvantage, like as if the blueing it would take an afternoon.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 7: BLEWED, got rid of, disposed of, spent.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 97: BLEWED, got rid of, disposed of, spent.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 8/1: The ‘flat’ [...] as a consequence, ‘blews’ his ‘sugar,’ after which he is ‘pratted’ outside the mob, and left to reflect on the immutability of human affairs. [Ibid.] 22/2: As soon as he saw me he asked, ‘Get me some “max” or I’ll “blue” my bl—dy inside out.’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 37: He’s been an’ blued it [...] Been an’ blued it to buy a sunday veskit with!
1881		‘’Arry on Fashion’ in Punch 10 Sept. 110/1: A chap of my form can be in it, if ready to blue arf a quid.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Jan. 8/3: He wedded – yet he did not prove / A champion baby-husher. To ‘blue’ the ‘sugar’ he did love, / And give the ‘old girl’ ‘brusher’.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 7 June 42/3: I should have blewed the lot a-buying a pistol and bulletsed the lot.
1884		Sporting Times 26 Jan. 1/3: ‘I’ve just received four sovereigns [...] Any of you would at once blew them, whereas I shall save ’em up’.
1884		‘Career of a Scapegrace’ in Leicester Chron. 10 May 12/1: Jerry almost invariably ‘blued’ his coin as he got it.
1889		Sporting Times 29 June n.p.: Isabel and Maudie knew the Turf and all its arts – They had often blewed a dollar on a wrong ’un [F&H].
1890		Bird o’ Freedom 22 Jan. 1: On the case of the New Waterbury, whereon he blued a slice of last week’s nap earnings.
1892		H. Lawson ‘The Bush Undertaker’ in Roderick (1972) 56: None o’ them pianer-fingered parsons is a-goin’ ter take the trouble to travel out to this God-forgotten part [...] seein’ as how his last cheque’s blued.
1898		West Australian (Perth) 5 Feb. 9/5: Once at Deniliquin, before starting to ‘blew’ his just-earned cheque, Bob Edwards went into a barber’s shop to set his chin and hair back at scratch, by way of beginning a new year.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 18 Mar. 2/7: He done it grand, / He blewed a pile.
1898		Broadford Courier (Vic.) 25 Feb. 5/3: Thus quite important city merchants will tell you nonchalantly that they ‘blued their stuff’ in such and such a venture; while the partizan of [...] the racecourse prefers to express himself as having ‘blued his good greed’.
1899		R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 294: You blued everythink, ’cept the gold what’s in yer ’art.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 28/2: Evading infantry pickets and the ‘frogs’-march,’ they duly reported at the guard-room of the 22nd, and, re-invigorated, returned to duty, every pie of Rs. 1500 royally ‘blewed’.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 19: BLEW, BLEWED UP: to dissipate, gamble, or lose money. A variant, no doubt of the sporting phrase ‘to blow out’ or ‘to get blown out,’ i.e. to lose or get beaten.
1902		J. Masefield ‘One of the Bosun’s Yarns’ in Salt-Water Ballads 19: Loafin’ around in Sailor Town, a-bluin’ o’ my advance.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 165: I’d rather ’ave five quid down, once a year, to blue in a day if I felt like it, then thirty bob a week for life.
1908		E.G. Murphy ‘Is It Hot Enough?’ in Jarrahland Jingles 173: If Gussie has a bob he’ll soon be blewing it.
1910		Truth (Perth) 23 July 12/8: Dippers when they touch a pocket / With a purse wot’s full of coin, / All they have to do is blew it.
1911		A. Wright Gamblers’ Gold (1931) 109: I blued me cheque drinkin’.
1916		‘Anzac’ On the Anzac Trail 58: [Y]ou’ll spend every piastre you can lay hands on before they let you go, and you'll blue the cash without caring.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Done for the Double’ in Three Elephant Power 135: ‘I moskenoed his block and tackle, and blued it in the school.’ In other words, he had pawned the boy’s watch and chain, and had lost the proceeds at pitch and toss.
a.1920		‘Flash Jack from Gundagai’ 🎵 I’ve been whalin’ up the Lachlan and I’ve dossed at Cooper’s Creek, / And once I rung Cudjingie shed and blued it in a week.
1935		M. Harrison Spring in Tartarus 338: Thank God [...] you thought of asking me about my book before I blewed the lot.
1937		J. Worby Other Half 170: They all helped me generously to blue my money.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 158: Borrowing a couple of bob [...] then blueing it on some woman or other.
1945		N. Marsh Died in the Wool (1963) 121: Lots of shearers wait until they’ve knocked up a good fat cheque and then [...] blue it all at the pub.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 329: What with the Yanks blewing their cheques and the home-front Aussies takin’ ’em down, you’d think you was back with the Froggies in the last war.
1952		G. Meek ‘A Clean Slate’ Station Days in Maoriland 89: Mother Doogan kept a shanty, forty miles along the track; / Where swagmen lubricated and the shearers blued their cheques.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 122: Johnnie, instead of blueing his crinkle on the dogs, bought Frankie four art-silk frocks.
1962		Marshall & Drysdale Journey among Men 160: Men [...] met there to buy provisions and to ‘blue’ their cheques on fiery spirits or shypoo, as colonial beer was called.
1969		R. Rendell Best Man To Die (1981) 26: They’d be able to blue some of their own savings on having the flat done up nicely.
1973		M. Harris Angry Eye 41: The other form of drinking [...] was characterised by the drinking ‘session’ or the shearer’s ‘blueing of his cheque’.
1990		R. Barnard Death in a Cold Climate (1991) 32: There were students who had just received their loans and were blueing a hundred kroner as a good start to the term.

3. (UK Und.) to dispose of (e.g. booty).

1850

Western Times 9 Feb. 6/3: Policeman Guppy [...] heard a conversation between the two prisoners [...] ‘What did the ‘splodger’ (fellow) say; did he find the ‘yack’ (watch) ‘blewed‘ (got rid of).

4. (Aus.) to make a mess of.

1996

J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 161: [H]e did exactly the same thing (aside from blueing the start) in the AJC Derby.