upblow

English

Etymology

From Middle English upblowen, equivalent to up- +‎ blow.

Verb

upblow (third-person singular simple present upblows, present participle upblowing, simple past upblew, past participle upblown)

1. (transitive, archaic) To inflate.
   • 1525, uncredited translator, The noble experyence of the vertuous handy warke of surgeri by Brunschwig, Hieronymus, London, Chapter 48 “Of the wounde in the brest,”^[1]

     […] the pacyent hath heuynes and vpblowynge in the syde […]

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 51:

     And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,
     Deformed creature, on a filthie swyne,
     His belly was vpblowne with luxury;

   • 1810, George Crabbe, The Borough‎^[2], Letter 16, p. 214:

     With Wine inflated, Man is all upblown,
     And feels a Power which he believes his own;

2. (transitive, archaic) To explode, blow up.
   • 1666, anonymous, Song 37, in Thomas Davidson, Cantus, songs and Fancies, to three, four, or five parts, Aberdeen,^[3]

     Ingyniers in the trench

     earth, earth uprearing,

     Gun-powder in the mynes,

     Pagans upblowing.

   • 1908, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, […], part third, London: Macmillan and Co., […], →OCLC, Act III, scene v, page 117:

     The bridge of Lindenau has been upblown!

3. (transitive, intransitive, archaic) To blow in an upward direction.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 447:

     The watry Southwinde from the seabord coste
     Vpblowing, doth disperse the vapour lo’ste,

   • 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, part 5, in Lyrical Ballads, London: J. & A. Arch, p. 28,^[4]

     The helmsman steerd, the ship mov’d on;

     Yet never a breeze up-blew;

   • 1814, Dante Alighieri, “The Vision of Purgatory”, in Henry Francis Cary, transl., The Divine Comedy‎^[5], Canto 25:

     Here the rocky precipice
     Hurls forth redundant flames, and from the rim
     A blast upblown, with forcible rebuff
     Driveth them back,

   • 1893, Louise Imogen Guiney, “Peter Rugg the Bostonian”, in A Roadside Harp,‎^[6], Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 3:

     The woods break down, the sand upblows
     In blinding volleys warm;

   • 1915, Vance Thompson, “Swift Reversal to Barbarism” in Horrors and Atrocities of the Great War, L.T. Myers, p. 105,^[7]

     A blazing August sun; a road of pebbles and stinging, upblown dust.

Translations

inflate

• Dutch: opblazen (nl)
• German: aufblasen (de)

Anagrams

• Publow, blow up, blow-up, blowup