blow
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /bləʊ/
ipa: /blɑː/
ipa: /bloʊ/
rhymes: -əʊ
Forms: form: blows
Etymology: From Middle English blowe, blaw, northern variant of blēwe, from Proto-Germanic *blewwaną (“to beat”) (compare Old Norse blegði (“wedge”), German einbläuen, Middle Dutch blouwen). Related to block.
Senses: examples: text: A fabricator is used to direct a sharp blow to the surface of the stone.
text: During an exchange to end round 13, Duran landed a blow to the midsection.
synonyms: bace
strike
hit
punch
glosses: An instance of the act of striking or hitting.
examples: text: There he found that […] Hanno's camp was crowded with cattle and carriages, and a mixed multitude of unarmed men, and even of women and children; and that a vigorous blow might win it with all its spoil: the indefatigable general was absent, scouring the country for additional supplies of corn.
ref: 1843, Thomas Arnold, “Progress of the War in Italy after the Battle of Cannæ. […]”, in J[ulius] C[harles] Hare, editor, History of Rome, volume III (From the End of the First to the End of the Second Punic War), London: B. Fellowes; […], →OCLC, page 227:
glosses: A sudden or forcible act or effort; an assault.
examples: text: A further blow to the group came in 1917 when Thomson died while canoeing in Algonquin Park.
text: a most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows
ref: c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi]:
text: Norwich returned to second in the Championship with victory over Nottingham Forest, whose promotion hopes were dealt another blow.
ref: 2011 April 15, Saj Chowdhury, “Norwich 2 - 1 Nott'm Forest”, in BBC Sport:
synonyms: disaster
calamity
glosses: A damaging occurrence.
examples: text: Click goes his shears; click, click, click. / Wide are the blows, and his hand is moving quick, / The ringer looks round, for he lost it by a blow, / And he curses that old shearer with the bare belled ewe.
ref: 1891 December 5, The Bacchus Marsh Express, Victoria, page 7, column 7:
qualifier: shearing
glosses: A cut made to a sheep's fleece by a shearer using hand-shears.
examples: text: "Blows" of quartz, crop out above the layers of slate, granite, and sandstone formation.
ref: 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 315:
glosses: An outcrop of quartz from surrounding rock, thought to indicate mineral deposits below.
examples: text: The blow is important because it transitions the reader and eventually the audience from one scene to another.
ref: 2014, Martie Cook, Write to TV: Out of Your Head and onto the Screen, page 105:
topics: broadcasting
media
television
glosses: Synonym of button (“the punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene”).
synonyms: word: button
extra: the punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene
Derived terms: at one blow
blow-by-blow
body blow
by-blow
bye-blow
come to blows
cushion the blow
deadblow
death blow
deathblow
hammer blow
hammerblow
low blow
soften the blow
strike a blow