Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To blow (a wind instrument) so as to produce an overtone instead of a fundamental tone.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To blow over; pass over; pass away.
- To blow hard or with too much violence.
- To blow over or across.
- To blow away; dissipate by or as by wind.
- To blow or play (a musical wind-instrument) with sufficient force to sound one of the harmonics of the tube instead of its fundamental tone. Metal instruments, like the horn and the trumpet, are nearly always thus blown; while wooden instruments, like the flute and the clarinet, are played in both ways.
- To cover with blossoms or flowers.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To cover with blossoms or flowers.
- v. intransitive, obsolete To blow over; pass over; pass away.
- v. intransitive To blow hard or with much violence.
- v. transitive To blow over or across.
- v. transitive To blow away; dissipate by or as by wind.
- v. transitive To exaggerate the significance of something.
- v. transitive (music) To blow a wind instrument hard to produce a higher pitch than usual.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. rare To blow over, or be subdued.
- v. (Mus.) To force so much wind into a pipe that it produces an overtone, or a note higher than the natural note; thus, the upper octaves of a flute are produced by
overblowing . - v. To blow away; to dissipate by wind, or as by wind.
- v. To ascribe an unwarranted importance to.
- v. (Music) To blow into (a wind instrument) too strongly, so as to produce predominantly overtones.
Etymologies
- From Middle English overblowen, equivalent to over- + blow. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A spokeswoman for the US-led International Security Assistance Force said that coalition was "cautiously optimistic" about the Sangin deal but were reluctant to "overblow" its importance.”
“If you do not overblow your expectations here you will discover great beauty but if you expect more than you will find here you will leave disappointed.”
“Sure, on The X Factor the judges are in competition with one another, but unless Simon starts hiring hit men to take out LA's acts, let's not overblow the dueling critiques.”
Why The X Factor Bloodbath Is Good News — And Hopefully Just a Starting Point
“And a personal insult to our secretary of state is just as ignorant as anyone of our enemies 'attempt to overblow their own importance.”
“The media succeeds in turning these events into worldwide calamities, and it appears the hype machine is getting in gear to promote, overblow and misinterpret the 2012 "apocalypse" now.”
INTERVIEW: Michael Hanlon, Author of Eternity, Our Next Billion Years
“And should Crowley have realized that escalating this to his arrest would have brought nothing but unnecessary manhours and paperwork being files, but also insane attention from media to overblow the situation?”
Release the Crowley/Gates tapes. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState
“(And, too, the media, which regurgitate Republican narratives and talking points without much thought of their own, tend to overblow the situation, leaving Democratic voters with the impression that their party is deeply divided, dysfunctional, and doomed, sapping a good deal of whatever enthusiasm they might have.)”
The Huffington Post: Michael J.W. Stickings: Get Yer Act Together, Dems!
“And his point, despite some folks 'efforts to overblow it so they can enjoy getting all offended, is pretty simple -- there's a deep vein of fatalism out there that no black man will ever get elected President so it's useless to support one.”
Prominent Obama Supporter Calls Black Skepticism "Slave Mentality"
“Brittney and Paris are overblow hype ... that's the comparrison that was desired.”
“If Twitter was incompatible with the most widely-spoken language of Iran, then that might lend some added weight to the idea that Twitter's role in and around Iran has been overblow.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘overblow’.
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It's Over: A Beginning
Terms that start with the string over-, beginning with overanxious.
Your entries are welcome.
overanxious, overachiever, oversimplified, overdone, overaccentuate, overact, overadjustment, overage, overaggressive, overalert, overalls, overambitious and 138 more...
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2300°F
Glassmaking terms
avolio, aeolipile, rhyton, came, acid etching, acid stamping, twist, air twist, annealing, at-the-fire, glory hole, glazier and 67 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for overblow.
reesetee A by-product of mold blowing; the overblow is the portion of the parison that remains outside the mold. Also called moil. Nov 9, 2007