blast

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bläst, IPA^(key): /blɑːst/
• (US) enPR: blăst, IPA^(key): /blæst/
• Rhymes: -ɑːst
• Rhymes: -æst

From Middle English blast from Old English blǣst (“blowing, blast”), from Proto-Germanic *blēstaz, *blēstuz (“blowing, blast”). Cognate with obsolete German Blast (“wind, blowing”). More at blow.

blast (plural blasts)

1. A violent gust of wind.
   • Thomson

     And see where surly Winter passes off, / Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts; / His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill.

2. A forcible stream of air from an orifice, for example from a bellows, the mouth, etc.
3. A hit from a pipe.
4. The continuous blowing to which one charge of ore or metal is subjected in a furnace

   many tons of iron were melted at a blast

   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 146:

     Blast was produced by bellows worked by four 'blowers', three of whom worked at a time while the fourth stood ready to replace one of the others.

5. The exhaust steam from an engine, driving a column of air out of a boiler chimney, and thus creating an intense draught through the fire; also, any draught produced by the blast.
6. An explosion, especially for the purpose of destroying a mass of rock, etc.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎:

     Blast after blast, fiery outbreak after fiery outbreak, like a flaming barrage from within, […] most of Edison's grounds soon became an inferno.  As though on an incendiary rampage, the fires systematically devoured the contents of Edison's headquarters and facilities.

7. An explosive charge for blasting.
   • Tomlinson

     Large blasts are often used.

8. A loud, sudden sound.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     One blast upon his bugle horn / Were worth a thousand men.

   • Bryant

     the blast of triumph o'er thy grave

   • 1884: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter VIII

     Then the captain sung out "Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone.

9. A sudden, pernicious effect, as if by a noxious wind, especially on animals and plants; a blight.
   • Bible, Job iv. 9

     By the blast of God they perish.

   • Shakespeare

     virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast

10. (figuratively, informal) A good time; an enjoyable moment.

    We had a blast at the party last night.

11. (marketing) A promotional message sent to an entire mailing list.

    an e-mail blast; a fax blast

12. A flatulent disease of sheep.

From Middle English blasten, blesten, from Old English blǣstan (“to blow, blast”), from Proto-Germanic *blēstijaną. Compare Middle High German blesten (“to stand out, plop, splash”).

blast (third-person singular simple present blasts, present participle blasting, simple past and past participle blasted)

1. (transitive) To confound by a loud blast or din.
   • Shakespeare

     Trumpeters, / With brazen din blast you the city's ear.

2. (intransitive) To make a loud noise.
3. (transitive) To shatter, as if by an explosion.
4. (transitive) To open up a hole in, usually by means of a sudden and imprecise method (such as an explosion).

   Blast right through it.

5. (transitive) To curse; to damn.

   Blast it! Foiled again.

6. (transitive) (sci-fi) To shoot, especially with an energy weapon (as opposed to one which fires projectiles).

   Chewbacca blasted the Stormtroopers with his laser rifle.

7. (soccer) To shoot; kick the ball in hope of scoring a goal.
   • 2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC‎:

     A Ricketts and Stuart Holden one-two around the box then created a decent chance for an almost instant equaliser - but Welsh full-back Ricketts blasted over when a calmer finish could have been rewarded.

8. To criticize or reprimand severely; to verbally discipline or punish.

   My manager suddenly blasted me yesterday for being a little late to work for five days in a row, because I was never getting myself up on time.

9. (transitive) To blight or wither.

   A cold wind blasted the rose plants.

10. (intransitive, obsolete) To be blighted or withered.
    • c. 1592, Walter Raleigh, “The Lie”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), published 1608:

      Tell age it daily wasteth;
      tell honour how it alters;
      Tell beauty how she blasteth;
      tell fauour how it falters:
      And as they shall reply,
      giue euery one the lye.

    The bud blasted in the blossom.

11. (obsolete, intransitive) To blow, for example on a trumpet.
    • Chaucer

      Toke his blake trumpe faste / And gan to puffen and to blaste.

blast

1. (Britain, dated) To show displeasure; damn

Can be used on its own or in the form "blast it!".

From Ancient Greek βλαστός (blastós, “germ or sprout”).

blast (plural blasts)

1. (cytology) An immature or undifferentiated cell (e.g., lymphoblast, myeloblast).

• blast cell
• blastocyte
• blastoma

From BLAST (an acronym for Basic Local Alignment Search Tool).

blast (third-person singular simple present blasts, present participle blasting, simple past and past participle blasted)

1. (biology, informal, transitive) To run a nucleotide sequence (for nucleic acids) or an amino acid sequence (for proteins) through a BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool).
   • 2004, Andreas Bommarius and ‎Bettina Riebel-Bommarius, Biocatalysis: Fundamentals and Applications, p. 425:

     Blasting nucleotide sequences is not always that easy, because there is more ambiguity to the nucleotide sequence, and good hits have to have a 70% homology over the whole sequence to be reliable, compared to 25% with proteins.

• BLAST

• Balts, blats

blast

1. Second-person plural present of blasen.
2. Imperative plural of blasen.

From Ancient Greek βλαστός (blastós, “germ, sprout”).

blast m (genitive singular blast, nominative plural blastaí)

1. (cytology) blast

• -blast
• blastchill (“blast cell”)

• blaste, blæst, blest

From Old English blǣst, from Proto-Germanic *blēstuz; equivalent to blasen +‎ -th.

• IPA^(key): /blast/, /blɛːst/

blast (plural blastes)

1. A blast; a sudden and forceful motion of wind.
2. One's breathing or respiring; the act of respiration.
3. The blast produced by a musical instrument.
4. An emission or expulsion of fire or flames.
5. The sound produced by thunder or storms.
6. (rare) The making of a pronouncement or proclamation.
7. (rare) One's spiritual essence; the soul.
8. (rare) A striking or attack.
9. (rare) Flatulence; the making of a fart.

• blasten

• English: blast
• Scots: blast

• “blast (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-09-27.

blast c (definite form blasten)

1. (uncountable) The stem and leaves of a vegetable, of which you're only supposed to eat the root. E.g. in potatoes or carrots.