Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus./Irish/US) a stranger, a newcomer, someone who has ‘blown in’, esp. one who is not yet accepted by the locals.

1913		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Nov. 8/8: Beware, O beware of the blow-in [...] a blitherin’ blow-in!
1925		J. Stevens ‘Logger Talk’ AS I:3 138/1: The logger talk heard in these bunkhouse nights was usually about work in the woods or ‘blow-ins’ along the skidroads in town.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 31: blow in.-An arrival.
1935		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Sept. 9s/3: ‘What’s that you say?’ chipped in [...] a ‘blow-in’ from the back of the hall.
1941		Williamstown Chron. )Vic.) 16 May 7/4: ‘Blow-in’ Gets A Month [...] for using obscene language.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 90: And from countrymen in general [...] blow-in, a newcomer, a person of brief residence in a locality.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 195: A couple of blow-ins from the Causeway.
1965		J. O’Grady Aussie Eng. (1966) 22: ‘Who was that?’ ‘Buggered if I know—some bloody blow-in.’.
1973		(con. 1930s) F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 33: We don’t want any shit-stirrers here, we’ve got enough of our own without blow-ins. Get out.
1985		T. Murphy Conversations on a Homecoming (1986) 24: JJ was a blow-in, a cute buff-sham from back there Caherlistrane-side.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 9: Blow-in: An unexpected and not particularly welcome guest: ‘He’s just a bloody blow-in; tell him to go to buggery.’.
1999		Guardian Weekend 11 Sept. 10: As the Irish would say, we were all blow-ins.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 45: [...] which is how you can tell real money people out there from the blow-ins.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] You fucking blow-in, you don’t know Brunetti’s from Donetti’s.
2010		K. Barry ‘Fjord of Killary’ in New Yorker 24 Jan. 🌐 I was a fretful blow-in, by their mark, and simply not cut out for tough, gnarly, West of Ireland living.
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] A blow-in from the east perhaps, or a miner from up north.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] Compared to her, Nick is a blow-in.
2023		M. Shaw in bylinesupplement@substack.com 22 Jan. 🌐 Whether a local or blow-in, broke or loaded, the response is the same. Dismay, anger, a need to push back.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1959		D. Hewett Bobbin Up (1961) 245: She’d say what the Jumbuck workers wanted, not some blow-in Commo with a lotta jumped-up, red-ragger ideas.
2002		S. Maloney Something Fishy (2006) 94: The surf scene [...] was tight and the local nazis took a dim view of blow-in grommets.