Blast

How to spell blast

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce blast

What does blast mean?

1. nounA sudden strong rush of wind, sound, or force, especially from an explosion.
2. verbTo destroy or break apart with explosives, or to produce a loud forceful effect.
3. nounInformally, a thoroughly enjoyable and lively experience.

Blast in a sentence

• noun

  A cold blast of air swept through the open door.

• verb

  Engineers planned to blast the old bridge supports at dawn.

• noun

  The whole team had a blast at the office summer party.

• noun

  The blast from the demolition shattered windows two streets away.

• verb

  The radio would blast music through the empty warehouse.

• noun

  Learning to sail turned out to be an absolute blast.

Where does blast come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English noun blæst, meaning 'a blowing' or 'a gust of wind', and it is rooted in the same ancient Germanic family that gave us 'blow' and 'bladder', all tracing back to a base sense of swelling or puffing air outward. For centuries it referred chiefly to a strong rush of wind or breath, which is why a trumpet could give a loud 'blast' long before anything exploded. The explosive meaning grew up alongside gunpowder and quarrying, where a charge sends a violent gust of air and debris outward, a natural extension of the original idea of forced air. The casual modern sense of 'a thoroughly enjoyable time' is a twentieth-century American slang development, capturing the idea of something energetic and exhilarating. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable because it is short and phonetic; the only mild trap is remembering it is a clean single 's' and 't', with no doubled letters.

How the word is built

• blast (from Old English blæst: a blowing, a gust of wind)