Blown

How to spell blown

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce blown

What does blown mean?

1. verbPast participle of blow: moved or driven by a current of air, or having produced such a current.
2. verbInformally, having spent or wasted money or an opportunity recklessly.

Blown in a sentence

• The autumn gale had blown leaves across the entire driveway.

• By the end of the holiday he had blown his entire bonus on dinners out.

• By morning the storm had blown several tiles off the roof.

• She felt she had blown a rare chance to impress the panel.

Where does blown come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Blown is the past participle of the verb blow, which descends from the Old English blawan, meaning 'to move air' or 'to produce a current of air'. That verb belonged to the wider Germanic family and is related to words for swelling and puffing, since the same idea of air being forced outward sits behind both blowing and blooming. The strong past participle form ending in -n is an old Germanic pattern, the same one that gives us 'known' from 'know' and 'grown' from 'grow', which is why the spelling keeps that final n rather than the regular -ed. Over the centuries blown picked up extra senses through the idea of being filled or driven by air, so a tyre can be 'blown' and, in casual modern use, money can be 'blown' as if scattered to the wind. The spelling trap is small but real: the silent w and the -own ending tempt some writers toward 'blone', so it helps to remember its rhyming relatives grown and known.

How the word is built

• blow (Old English blawan: to move air)
• -n (past participle ending)