blow n.3
1. an act of ‘blowing off steam’.
(a) (orig. US) a celebration, a party, a spree.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Harvard Register Aug. 172: My fellow-students had been engaged at a ‘blow’. | |
| College Words (rev. edn) 29: blow. A merry frolic with drinking; a spree. [...] The word was formerly used by students to designate their frolics and social gatherings; at present it is not much heard, being supplanted by more common words spree, tight, &c. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Sportsman (London) 12 Aug. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [A] man has only to take a boat from London-bridge, for ‘a blow’ down the river [etc]. | |
| ‘’Arry at the Sea-Side’ Punch 10 Sept. 111/1: I [...] came here for a bite and a blow. | |
| ‘Wot Cher!’ 🎵 My Old Dutch knows ’ow to do the grand, First she bows, and then she waves ’er ’and, Calling out we’re goin’ for a blow! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | ‘The Wargeilah Handicap’ Rio Grande’s Last Race (1904) 114: The day wound up with booze and blow / And fights till all were well content. | |
| ‘An Easterly Breeze’ Sporting Times 10 Apr. 1/2: He’ll do to take out for a blow / Even if it should end in a squall. | |
| Third Ear n.p.: blow n. 1. a party. |
(b) (US campus) a reveller, a party-goer.
| Collegian (Harvard) 231: I could see in the long vista of the past, the many hardened blows who had rioted here around the festive board. | |
| College Words (rev. edn) 30: The person who engages in a blow, is also called a blow. |
(c) a treat of food and drink.
| Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 7 Sept. n.p.: The new landlord gave a free ‘blow’ to his friends and the public. | |
| Shorty McCabe 167: I said we’d make it a ’leven-o’ clock supper, after the theatre; but it must be my blow. |
(d) (Aus.) an ejaculation of semen; a male orgasm.
| Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 17: BLOW — Male ejaculation. |
(e) see blow-out n.1 (2)
2. in the context of speech and/or sound.
(a) (US) a betrayal, the passing of information, esp. to the authorities.
| Life In Sing Sing 263: Everything was on the good, when we got a blow. |
(b) (Aus.) boasting.
| Courier (Brisbane) 20 July 3/1: It is for us to demonstrate that the talk about tbe goldfields [...] is not, to use a bit of colonial slang — ‘all blow’. | |
| Wkly Times (Melbourne) 2 Aug. 9/5: It doesn’t do the country any manner of good for such men to be going about with a whole bellows full of ‘blow’ about it, and claiming us for close relations. | |
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 9 Nov. 1/1: Blow holes — Politicians’ mouths. | |
| Golden South 71: Is there not very much that the Australian may well be proud of, and may we not commend him for a spice of blow? | |
| Australasian 12 Aug. 102/1: Now Digby Holland will think it was mere Australian blow. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 2 Mar. 8/5: I have no doubt he mingled among the ‘Sydney ducks’ on the Pacific Slope, and if ‘blow’ and ‘bounce’ could do it ho would earn a living. | |
| ‘The Skiters’ Osteralia Apr. n.p.: Of course we’re bloomin skiters – / We can do our bit of blow. / But we know our blanky brothers, / Who have gone along before, / Fought as well as most the others, / Though they ain’t quite won the war. | |
| Hungry Men 47: That guy was full of blow. | |
| River Rules My Life 124: Remember all the skite and blow he went on with about buckjumping shows in Aussie? |
(c) (Aus.) a braggart.
| Sport (Adelaide) 22 Jan. 5/2: Bun P is known as the Summertown blow, / His mouth it is so big. |
(d) the act of playing music.
| Absolute Beginners 76: Some musicians there in the Dubious had begun to have a blow. | |
| Owning Up (1974) 99: We played three one-hour sessions and relied on musicians who wanted a blow to fill in the gaps. | |
| Indep. Rev. 25 Feb. 17: The quality of blow is very good. |
(e) the import or essence of one’s conversation.
| Third Ear n.p.: blow n. […] 2. the message of a person’s conversation; the import of what was said at a particular time. |
(f) see blow-up n.1 (4)
3. a rest, a pause.
(a) a brief halt, a break in activity or speech.
 | [trans.] Cervantes Don Quixote 402: Hold a blow there, good Mr. Montesinos, quo I, Comparisons are odious. |
(b) a break from work, a period of relaxation.
| Knickerbocker (N.Y.) Aug. 146: I determined that the horses should now have a good ‘blow’ [DA]. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 30 Aug. 14/1: Yes, it’s dead miserable and you get out as soon as your load’s off, and your team has had a blow – back through the sand that growls under your wheels, to the water you left at daybreak yesterday morning. | |
| Sat. Eve. Post 11 Sept. 19/3: He stopped to give the horses a blow [DA]. | |
| (con. 1945) Spearhead 61: Go on, take a blow. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Gun in My Hand 227: Have a blow. No sense bustin yaself. | |
| Walking the Beat 84: ‘[I]f you get tired of writing this crap [i.e. summonses] and want to take a blow I’ll write them in for you’. | |
| (con. 1941) Gunner 119: We could all do with a blow and a feed before we tackle the road. | |
| Union Dues (1978) 240: It’s almost lunchtime, you take a blow. |
(c) ‘a breath of fresh air’.
| ‘Joffre’ War Poems 67: T’other day, he thought he’d go / (Thinks, does Joffre!) / To the seaside for a blow, / Cheerful Joffre! | |
| Right to an Answer (1978) 44: Beryl had said she’d accompany them for a ‘bit of a blow’. |
4. in drug uses, referring to inhalation.
(a) a pipe or a cigarette; a puff on a pipe or a cigarette.
| ‘’Arry at Stonehenge’ Punch 28 Aug. in (2006) 85: And arter a blow and a wet, / I cut my name and poll’s. | |
| Gilt Kid 278: Could you spare one, mate? I ain’t had a blow since I was knocked off. |
(b) (US) a smoke of opium.
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 132: I looked at him again and asked him if he hadn’t been ‘taking a blow’. | |
| ‘. . . Or Leave It Alone’ in Jungle Kids (1967) 64: That fruit uptown had treated me to a blow of opium. |
(c) a snort or sniff of cocaine.
| Buffalo Sun. Morn. News (NY) 23 Nov. 13/1: The man [...] took a ‘sniff of cocaine.’ He took a ‘blow of the white stuff.’ He too a ‘shot of snow‘. He took a ‘blow of flake’. | |
| Traffic In Narcotics 306: blow. An inhalation of a drug by an addict. | |
| Street Players 16: I’d have asked you to a blow, Charles. | |
| Assault with a Deadly Weapon 162: Taking a blow of coke, blow of heroin. It was a social thing. | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 94: She snorted a blow of pure cocaine. | |
| Midnight Lightning 85: He comes in, takes his little blow, and drops dead. |
(d) a puff on a marijuana cigarette or pipe.
| Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 33: When you’ve had a blow, don’t let it go, but keep breathing in air. | |
| New Society 26 June n.p.: Yeah, I had a blow [KH]. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 145: I stopped and took a blow off the pipe that was handed to me. | |
| Grits 154: Am partial to-a blow meself, boy. No arm in it, it’s not proper drugs like, not ee ard stuff. |
(e) cocaine.
| ‘The Fall’ in et al. Life (1976) 80: Where addicts prowl with a tigerish scowl / In search of that lethal blow. | |
| Jones Men 137: I just copped some nice blow. | |
| ‘White Lines’ 🎵 Hey man, you wanna cop some blow? | |
| Native Tongue 169: They were doing blow behind the Magic Mansion. | |
| Night Gardener 7: Smoking weed, and doing a little blow. | |
| Life 7: I was flying high as a kite on pure, pure Merck cocaine, the fluffy pharmaceutical blow. | |
| Long & Faraway Gone [ebook] Would one line of blow really be the end of the world? |
(f) a small portion of heroin, inhaled rather than injected.
| Dopefiend (1991) 32: If she took just a little blow, Teddy would never know. | |
| see sense 4c. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | The Joy (2015) [ebook] I sing to the brown powder on the table. [...] Liked a bit of blow himself, he did. Nesta Robert Marley, musical genius and druggie. |
(g) marijuana or hashish; a marijuana cigarette.
| Stand (1990) 149: A stolen car full of blow and shooting irons. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘Stoke Newington Blues’ in Acid House 36: All they deal in is blow. | |
| Sopranos 203: You drop the last wee chunk of blow, drop it on that fucking brown carpet. | |
| Cartoon City 18: If you like you can come back to my place for a few jars and a bit of blow. Finish the night on a high. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 21/1: blow n. marijuana, a marijuana cigarette. | |
| (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Blow- cannabis. |
(h) (N.Z.) the act of sniffing glue; usu. in phr. have a blow, to sniff glue.
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 16/1: blow phr. have a blow, streetkid for sniffing glue. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
(i) crack cocaine.
| Keys to the Street 130: A faint chance that he’d left a tab or even some blow – who was he kidding – in the pockets. | |
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 blow Definition: crack-cocaine Example: Yo, I just scored some blow from the slug on the corner. | |
| ‘Dun Deal’ 🎵 You know how much blow we sold. |
(j) a puff on a crack cocaine pipe.
| Yardie 95: One more blow, den we move. |
(k) a session of smoking cannabis.
| ‘A Smart Cunt’ Acid House 212: Me, Roxy and The path were up at Sidney’s flat having a blow. |
(l) Oxycontin.
| In Nine Kinds of Pain [ebook] Oxy, Dallas is sure, makes the world go ’round [...] Dallas now knows [...] why a person, any person, would go to any length to score some blow just to snort it away so they need more blow. |
In compounds
(US drugs) a cocaine addict.
| Right As Rain 58: Blow fiends and pipeheads, their money’s green too, don’t get me wrong. |
(drugs) a regular or excessive user of cocaine.
| High Concept 116: He stumbled onto a blow monkey’s dream. |
In phrases
see under down v.3
to make contact, to communicate.
| ‘Big Shoulders’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 586: A couple of old characters [...] give Blooch a blow, and he stops to talk to them. |
(US) to leave.
| Davenport Democrat and Leader (IA) 28 May 32/2–3: So we made the blow and gave ’em the air, and then crashed a jazz-garden where a flock of sub-chasers and dumb-doras were rattlin’ their dogs. |