Blowout

How to spell blowout

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blowout

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blowout mean?

1. nounA sudden bursting of a tyre or similar inflated part while in use.
2. nounA large, extravagant party, meal, or celebration.
3. nounA contest won by an overwhelming margin.
4. nounA sudden, uncontrolled escape of oil, gas, or pressure from a well or pipe.

Blowout in a sentence

• A blowout on the motorway forced him onto the hard shoulder.

• They threw a huge blowout for her fortieth birthday.

• The match turned into a complete blowout by halftime.

• The offshore rig suffered a catastrophic blowout that spilled crude oil.

• The worn front tyre suffered a blowout at high speed.

• The office held a year-end blowout at a downtown hotel.

Where does blowout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, formed by joining the verb 'blow' to the adverb 'out'. The verb 'blow' descends from the Old English blawan, meaning to move air or to puff, a word with deep Germanic roots tied to the action of breathing or driving wind. The particle 'out' comes from the Old English ut, meaning away or to the exterior, the same element that lives inside countless English phrasal verbs. As a single noun, 'blowout' is comparatively modern, taking shape in American English during the 1800s for something that bursts or rushes outward under pressure, such as a tyre or a gas well. From that literal image of escaping pressure the word branched into lively figurative uses: a lavish party where energy is released, and a contest so lopsided that one side is, in effect, blown clean off the field.

How the word is built

• blow (from Old English blawan: to move air, to puff)
• out (Old English ut: away, outward)