Blow up
WordNet
verb
(1) Make large
"Blow up an image"
(2) To swell or cause to enlarge, "Her faced puffed up from the drugs"
"Puffed out chests"
(3) Fill with gas or air
"Inflate a balloons"
(4) Exaggerate or make bigger
"The charges were inflated"
(5) Burst and release energy as through a violent chemical or physical reaction;"the bomb detonated at noon"
"The Molotov cocktail exploded"
(6) Cause to burst with a violent release of energy
"We exploded the nuclear bomb"
(7) Add details to
(8) Get very angry and fly into a rage
"The professor combusted when the student didn't know the answer to a very elementary question"
"Spam makes me go ballistic"
WiktionaryText
Verb
- To explode or be destroyed by explosion.
- Why do cars in movies always blow up when they fall off a cliff?
- To explode something or somebody or destroy something or injure or kill somebody by explosion.
- We had to blow up the bridge before the enemy army arrived.
- More civilians than soldiers have been blown up by anti-personnel mines.
- To inflate or fill with air.
- Blow up the balloons.
- To enlarge or zoom in.
- Blow up the picture to get a better look at their faces.
- To fail disastrously.
- }
- To become popular very quickly.
- This album is about to blow up; they’re being promoted on MTV.
- To suddenly get very angry.
- Dad blew up at me when I told him I was pregnant.
Usage notes
In senses 2, 3, and 4 the object may appear before or after the particle. If the object is a pronoun, then it must be before the particle.