Blasting

How to spell blasting

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blasting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blasting mean?

1. verbProducing a very loud sound, or moving or striking with great force.
2. nounThe use of explosives to break rock or demolish a structure.

Blasting in a sentence

• verb

  The car stereo was blasting music through the entire car park.

• noun

  The quarry posted warning signs because blasting was scheduled for noon.

• verb

  A cold wind kept blasting across the open platform all morning.

• noun

  Engineers need a licence before any blasting can begin on the site.

Where does blasting come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the Old English noun 'blæst', meaning a blowing, a gust of wind, or a puff of breath, which belongs to the same Germanic family that gave us 'blow' and 'bluster'. The original sense was simply moving air, the breath of the lungs or the rush of wind, and from there it extended to the blowing of a trumpet and the sudden burst of a wind instrument. By the time gunpowder reached Europe, the word had taken on the idea of a violent, explosive burst, so 'blast' came to mean a charge of explosive and the rending of rock. The '-ing' form names the continuing action or the activity itself, as in the controlled blasting used in quarries and mines. Because the root has always been a plain native word, the spelling is straightforward: it is simply 'blast' with the familiar ending attached, no doubled letters and no silent traps.

How the word is built

• blast (root: a strong gust or explosion)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)