Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (orig. US) a celebration, a party, a spree.

1827		Harvard Register Aug. 172: My fellow-students had been engaged at a ‘blow’.
1856		B.H. Hall 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.
1869		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].
1887		‘’Arry at the Sea-Side’ Punch 10 Sept. 111/1: I [...] came here for a bite and a blow.
1892		Albert Chevalier ‘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!
1902		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘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.
1915		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘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.
1971		H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: blow n. 1. a party.

(b) (US campus) a reveller, a party-goer.

1830		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.
1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 30: The person who engages in a blow, is also called a blow.

(c) a treat.

1850		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 7 Sept. n.p.: The new landlord gave a free ‘blow’ to his friends and the public.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 167: I said we’d make it a ’leven-o’ clock supper, after the theatre; but it must be my blow.

(d) see blow-out n.¹ (2)

(a) (US) a betrayal, the passing of information, esp. to the authorities.

1904

Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 263: Everything was on the good, when we got a blow.

(b) (Aus.) boasting.

1863		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’.
1873		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.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 9 Nov. 1/1: Blow holes — Politicians’ mouths.
1890		‘Lyth’ 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?
1893		Australasian 12 Aug. 102/1: Now Digby Holland will think it was mere Australian blow.
1904		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.
1917		‘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.
1935		E. Anderson Hungry Men 47: That guy was full of blow.
1963		M. Anderson River Rules My Life 124: Remember all the skite and blow he went on with about buckjumping shows in Aussie?

(c) (Aus.) a braggart.

1915

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.

1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 76: Some musicians there in the Dubious had begun to have a blow.
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 99: We played three one-hour sessions and relied on musicians who wanted a blow to fill in the gaps.
2000		Indep. Rev. 25 Feb. 17: The quality of blow is very good.

(e) the import or essence of one’s conversation.

1971

H.E. Roberts 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)

(a) a pipe or a cigarette; a puff on a pipe or a cigarette.

1886		‘’Arry at Stonehenge’ Punch 28 Aug. in P. Marks (2006) 85: And arter a blow and a wet, / I cut my name and poll’s.
1936		J. Curtis 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.

1901		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 132: I looked at him again and asked him if he hadn’t been ‘taking a blow’.
1954		E. Hunter ‘. . . 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.

1913		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’.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 306: blow. An inhalation of a drug by an addict.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 16: I’d have asked you to a blow, Charles.
1977		J. Allen Assault with a Deadly Weapon 162: Taking a blow of coke, blow of heroin. It was a social thing.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 94: She snorted a blow of pure cocaine.
2003		G. Tate Midnight Lightning 85: He comes in, takes his little blow, and drops dead.

(d) a puff on a marijuana cigarette or pipe.

1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 33: When you’ve had a blow, don’t let it go, but keep breathing in air.
1980		New Society 26 June n.p.: Yeah, I had a blow [KH].
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 145: I stopped and took a blow off the pipe that was handed to me.
2000		N. Griffiths 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.

a.1963		‘The Fall’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 80: Where addicts prowl with a tigerish scowl / In search of that lethal blow.
1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 137: I just copped some nice blow.
1983		Grandmaster & Mellie Mel ‘White Lines’ 🎵 Hey man, you wanna cop some blow?
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 169: They were doing blow behind the Magic Mansion.
2006		G. Pelecanos Night Gardener 7: Smoking weed, and doing a little blow.
2010		K. Richards Life 7: I was flying high as a kite on pure, pure Merck cocaine, the fluffy pharmaceutical blow.
2015		L. Berney 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.

1971		D. Goines Dopefiend (1991) 32: If she took just a little blow, Teddy would never know.
1977		see sense 4c.
1996		P. Howard 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.

1978		S. King Stand (1990) 149: A stolen car full of blow and shooting irons.
1994		I. Welsh ‘Stoke Newington Blues’ in Acid House 36: All they deal in is blow.
1998		A. Warner Sopranos 203: You drop the last wee chunk of blow, drop it on that fucking brown carpet.
2000		F. Mac Anna 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.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 21/1: blow n. marijuana, a marijuana cigarette.
2018-20		T. Thorne (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.

1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 16/1: blow phr. have a blow, streetkid for sniffing glue.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(i) crack cocaine.

1996		R. Rendell 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.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 blow Definition: crack-cocaine Example: Yo, I just scored some blow from the slug on the corner.
2021		Central Cee ‘Dun Deal’ 🎵 You know how much blow we sold.

(j) a puff on a crack cocaine pipe.

1992

V. Headley Yardie 95: One more blow, den we move.

(k) a session of smoking cannabis.

1994

I. Welsh ‘A Smart Cunt’ Acid House 212: Me, Roxy and The path were up at Sidney’s flat having a blow.