• (RP) enPR: bläst, IPA: /blɑːst/
• (America) enPR: blăst, IPA: /blæst/

blast (plural blasts)

1. A violent gust of wind.

   • And see where surly Winter passes off, / Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts; / His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill.

2. A forcible stream of gas or liquid from an orifice, for example from a bellows, the mouth, etc.
3. A hit from a pipe.
4. The continuous blowing to which one charge of ore or metal is subjected in a furnace

   many tons of iron were melted at a blast

   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 146:

     Blast was produced by bellows worked by four 'blowers', three of whom worked at a time while the fourth stood ready to replace one of the others.

5. The exhaust steam from an engine, driving a column of air out of a boiler chimney, and thus creating an intense draught through the fire; also, any draught produced by the blast.
6. An explosion, especially for the purpose of destroying a mass of rock, etc.
7. An explosive charge for blasting.

   • Large blasts are often used.

8. A loud, sudden sound.
   • 1810, Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake; a Poem, Edinburgh: Printed [by James Ballantyne and Co.] for John Ballantyne and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and William Miller, OCLC 6632529 ↗, (please specify the canto number)(please specify the stanza number):

     One blast upon his bugle horn / Were worth a thousand men.

   • the blast of triumph o'er thy grave

   • 1884 December 9, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], OCLC 458431182 ↗, page 60 ↗:

     Then the captain sung out: ¶ "Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone.

9. A sudden, pernicious effect, as if by a noxious wind, especially on animals and plants; a blight.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Job 4:9 ↗:

     By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.

   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […]‎, London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  […], published 1609, OCLC 78596089 ↗, [Act V, scene iii]:

     Vertue preferd from fell deſtuctions blaſt,

10. (figuratively, informal) A good time; an enjoyable moment.

    We had a blast at the party last night.

11. (marketing) A promotional message sent to an entire mailing list.

    an e-mail blast; a fax blast

12. A flatulent disease of sheep.

• French: rafale
• German: Windstoß
• Italian: raffica, folata, colpo di vento, ventata
• Portuguese: ventania
• Russian: поры́в ве́тра

• Italian: getto
• Russian: дутьё

• French: explosion, souffle
• Italian: esplosione, scoppio
• Portuguese: explosão
• Russian: взрыв

• Italian: squillo
• Russian: гро́хот

blast (blasts, present participle blasting; past and past participle blasted)

1. (transitive) To make an impression on, by making a loud blast or din.
   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene viii]:

     Trumpeters, / With brazen din blast you the city's ear.

2. (intransitive) To make a loud noise.
3. (transitive) To shatter, as if by an explosion.
4. (transitive) To open up a hole in, usually by means of a sudden and imprecise method (such as an explosion).

   Blast right through it.

5. (transitive) To curse; to damn.

   Blast it! Foiled again.

6. (transitive) (sci-fi) To shoot, especially with an energy weapon (as opposed to one which fires projectiles).

   Chewbacca blasted the Stormtroopers with his laser rifle.

7. (soccer) To shoot; kick the ball in hope of scoring a goal.
8. To criticize or reprimand severely; to verbally discipline or punish.

   My manager suddenly blasted me yesterday for being a little late to work for five days in a row, because I was never getting myself up on time.

9. (transitive) To blight or wither.

   A cold wind blasted the rose plants.

10. (intransitive, obsolete) To be blighted or withered.

    The bud blasted in the blossom.

11. (obsolete, intransitive) To blow, for example on a trumpet.

• Russian: греме́ть

• Russian: взрыва́ть

• Russian: проклина́ть

• Russian: раскритикова́ть

1. (UK, informal) To show displeasure; damn

• Italian: cribbio
• Portuguese: poxa vida, apre, pombas, pombas, poça, poxa, puxa

blast (plural blasts)

1. (cytology) An immature or undifferentiated cell (e.g., lymphoblast, myeloblast).

• French: blaste
• Italian: citoblasto

blast (blasts, present participle blasting; past and past participle blasted)

1. (biology, informal, transitive) To run a nucleotide sequence (for nucleic acids) or an amino acid sequence (for proteins) through a BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool).
   • 2004, Andreas Bommarius and ‎Bettina Riebel-Bommarius, Biocatalysis: Fundamentals and Applications, p. 425:

     Blasting nucleotide sequences is not always that easy, because there is more ambiguity to the nucleotide sequence, and good hits have to have a 70% homology over the whole sequence to be reliable, compared to 25% with proteins.

blast (uncountable)

1. (biology) An algorithm which compares similarities between sequences of nucleotides in nucleic acids or of amino acids in proteins.

blast (blasts, present participle blasting; past and past participle blasted)

1. (biology, informal, transitive) Alternative letter-case form of blast (to run a sequence through BLAST)
   • 2006, Guy Caldwell, ‎Shelli Williams, ‎and Kim Caldwell, Integrated Genomics: A Discovery-Based Laboratory Course, p. 85:

     This program is also capable of BLASTing sequencing results and works with most automated sequencing formats, alleviating the need for conversion of PC-based files.