blast

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A violent gust of wind (in windy weather) or apparent wind (around a moving vehicle).

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

   “Their warm, thick under covering of fine wool protects them from the coldest blasts.”

2. (countable, uncountable)A forcible stream of gas or liquid from an orifice, for example from a bellows, the tuyeres of a blast furnace, a person's mouth, etc.
3. (countable, uncountable)A hit of a recreational drug from a pipe.
4. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “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. (countable, uncountable)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. (countable, uncountable)An explosion, especially for the purpose of destroying a mass of rock, etc.

   “arc blast”

   “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.”

   “Signalman Bridges was killed by the blast, as was fireman Nightall. Amazingly, driver Gimbert came round some 200 yards away, on the grass outside the Station Hotel where he had been flung.”

7. (countable, uncountable)A verbal attack or punishment; a severe criticism or reprimand.

   “My manager gave me a blast yesterday for coming in late.”

   “P. S.—I gave the P. O. Department a blast in the papers about sending misdirected letters of mine back to the writers for reshipment, and got a blast in return, through a New York daily, from the New York postmaster.”

8. (countable, uncountable)An explosive charge for blasting.

   “1852-1854, Charles Tomlinson, Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts Large blasts are often used.”

9. (countable)A loud, sudden sound.

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

   “the blast of triumph o'er thy grave”

   “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.”

10. (uncountable)Unwanted noise from a microphone.

    “[…] the microphone has been unostentatiously working out its own destiny here and abroad, mainly in America. Evolution seems to be most promising (in the elimination of "microphone blast" and background noises — common faults of the earlier types) in the direction of the electrostatic, or condenser, microphone, […]”

11. (countable, uncountable)A sudden pernicious effect, as if by a noxious wind, especially on animals and plants; a blight.

    “By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.”

    “Vertue preferd from fell deſtuctions blaſt,”

12. (countable, figuratively, informal, uncountable)A good time; an enjoyable moment.

    “We had a blast at the party last night.”

13. (countable, uncountable)A promotional message sent to an entire mailing list.

    “an e-mail blast; a fax blast”

14. (countable, uncountable)A flatulent disease of sheep.
15. (countable, slang, uncountable)A period of full dosage of PEDs as opposed to a period of reduced intake.

    “blast and cruise”

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

verb

1. (transitive)To make an impression on, by making a loud blast or din.

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

2. (intransitive)To make a loud noise.
3. (informal, transitive)To play (music) very loudly out of a speaker.

   “Some kid is in his car blasting rap. You know, bass in the trunk and you can hear it 4 blocks away? I signal over to him and say "Hey, turn it up, I can't hear it." He turns around and says, "Shut Up Grandpa."”

4. (transitive)To shatter, as if by an explosion.

   “Although Maroczy favored solid, positional chess, there were times when he changed his style and blasted his opponents' defenses to bits.”

5. (transitive)To open up a hole in, usually by means of a sudden and imprecise method (such as an explosion).

   “Blast right through it.”

6. (transitive)To curse; to damn.

   “Blast it! Foiled again.”

7. (transitive)To shoot, especially with an energy weapon (as opposed to one which fires projectiles).

   “Chewbacca blasted the Stormtroopers with his laser rifle.”

8. To shoot; kick the ball in hope of scoring a goal.

   “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.”

9. (intransitive, slang, transitive)To shoot; to attack or shoot (someone or a place).

   “They showed up blasting.”

   “That's when we decided to blast him.”

   “And some kid comes blastin' around the corner but a cop puts him right away. He lays on the street holding his leg screaming something in Spanish, still breathing when I walked away.”

10. (transitive)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.”

    “John Cassavetes and New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael have never seen eye to eye on his films. According to the director, "She's blasted every one of my films except A Woman Under the Influence, which she couldn't quite bring herself to pan because it was a story about a woman. So she blasted Gena's acting instead."”

    “Mark Pritchard, a Tory member of Parliament, blasted the show for treating a somber subject as “a matter of fun.””

11. (transitive)To bring destruction or ruin on; to destroy.

    “Oh Portius, is there not some choſen Curſe, Some hidden Thunder in the Stores of Heav’n, Red with uncommon Wrath, to blaſt the Man Who owes his Greatneſs to his Country’s Ruin?”

    “Both Leo and myself rushed to her - she was stone dead - blasted into death by some mysterious electric agency or overwhelming will-force whereof the dread She had command.”

12. (transitive)To blight or wither.

    “A cold wind blasted the rose plants.”

13. (intransitive, obsolete)To be blighted or withered.

    “The bud blasted in the blossom.”

    “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.”

14. (intransitive, obsolete)To blow, for example on a trumpet.
15. (slang)To have a period of full dosage of PEDs as opposed to reducing them during a cruise period.

    “blast and cruise”

16. (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).

    “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.”

17. (alt-of, informal, transitive)Alternative letter-case form of blast (to run a sequence through BLAST)

    “This program is also capable of BLASTing sequencing results and works with most automated sequencing formats, alleviating the need for conversion of PC-based files.”

intj

1. (British, informal)Used to show anger or disappointment: damn

   “Now, where's my Labour membership card, so I can consider whether to tear it up? Blast, it's plastic...”

name

1. An algorithm which compares similarities between sequences of nucleotides in nucleic acids or of amino acids in proteins.