Adam Makkai - Словарь американских идиом: 8000 единиц

[blow in] {v.} , {slang} To arrive unexpectedly or in a carefree way. •/ The house was already full of guests when Bill blew in. / Compare SHOW UP(3).

[blow into] {v.} , {slang} To arrive at (a place) unexpectedly or in a carefree way. •/ Bill blows into college at the last minute after every vacation. / •/ Why Tom, when did you blow into town? /

[blow off steam]See: LET OFF STEAM.

[blow one’s brains out] {v. phr.} 1. To shoot yourself in the head. •/ Mr. Jones lost all his wealth, so he blew his brains out. / 2. {slang} To work very hard; overwork yourself. •/ The boys blew their brains out to get the stage ready for the play. / •/ Mary is not one to blow her brains out. / Compare: BREAK ONE’S NECK.

[blow one’s cool] {v. phr.} , {slang} , {informal} To lose your composure or self-control. •/ Whatever you say to the judge in court, make sure that you don’t blow your cool. /

[blow one’s lines]or [fluff one’s lines] {v. phr.} , {informal} To forget the words you are supposed to speak while acting in a play. •/ The noise backstage scared Mary and she blew her lines. /

[blow one’s mind] {v. phr.} , {slang} , {informal} ; {originally from the drug culture} 1. To become wildly enthusiastic over something as if understanding it for the first time in an entirely new light. •/ Read Lyall Watson’s book "Supernature", it will simply blow your mind! / 2. To lose one’s ability to function, as if due to an overdose of drugs, •/ Joe is entirely incoherent — he seems to have blown his mind. / Contrast: BLOW ONE’S COOL.

[blow one’s own horn]or [toot one’s own horn] {v. phr.} , {slang} To praise yourself; call attention to your own skill, intelligence, or successes; boast. •/ People get tired of a man who is always blowing his own horn. / •/ A person who does things well does not have to toot his own horn; his abilities will be noticed by others. /

[blow one’s top] {v. phr.} To become very excited, angry, hysterical, or furious. •/ "No need to blow your top, Al," his wife said, "just because you lost a few dollars." /

[blow out] {v. phr.} 1. To cease to function; fail; explode (said of tires and fuses). •/ The accident occurred when Jim’s tire blew out on the highway. / •/ The new dishwasher blew out the fuses in the whole house. / 2. To extinguish. •/ Jane blew out her birthday cake candles before offering pieces to the guests. /

[blowout] {n.} 1. An explosion of a tire or a fuse. •/ Jim’s van veered sharply to the right after his car had a blowout. / 2. A big party. •/ After graduation from college, my son and his friends staged a huge blowout. /

[blow over] {v.} To come to an end; pass away with little or no bad effects. •/ The sky was black, as if a bad storm were coming, but it blew over and the sun came out. / •/ They were bitter enemies for a while, but the quarrel blew over. / •/ He was much criticized for the divorce, but it all blew over after a few years. /

[blow taps] {v. phr.} To sound the final bugle call of the evening in a camp or military base. •/ After taps is blown the boy scouts go to their bunks to sleep. /

[blow the gaff] {v. phr.} To open one’s mouth to reveal a secret. •/ When Al cheated on his wife, his younger brother blew the gaff on him. /

[blow the lid off] {v. phr.} , {informal} Suddenly to reveal the truth about a matter that has been kept as a secret either by private persons or by some governmental agency. •/ The clever journalists blew the lid off the Watergate cover-up. /

[blow the whistle on] {v. phr.} , {slang} 1. To inform against; betray. •/ The police caught one of the bank robbers, and he blew the whistle on two more. / 2. To act against, stop, or tell people the secrets of (crime or lawlessness). •/ The mayor blew the whistle on gambling. / •/ The police blew the whistle on hot reading. /

[blow up] {v.} 1a. To break or destroy or to be destroyed by explosion. •/ He blew up the plane by means of a concealed bomb. / •/ The fireworks factory blew up when something went wrong in an electric switch. / 1b. {informal} To explode with anger or strong feeling; lose control of yourself. •/ When Father bent the nail for the third time, he blew up. / Compare: BLOW A FUSE. 1c. To stop playing well in a game or contest, usually because you are in danger of losing or are tired; {especially} : To lose skill or control in pitching baseball. •/ The champion blew up and lost the tennis match. / •/ Our team was behind but the pitcher on the other team blew up and we got the winning runs. / 2. {informal} To be ruined as if by explosion; be ended suddenly. •/ The whole scheme for a big party suddenly blew up. / 3a. To pump full of air; inflate. •/ He blew his tires up at a filling station. / 3b. To make (something) seem bigger or important. •/ It was a small thing to happen but the newspapers had blown it up until it seemed important. / 4. To bring on bad weather; also, to come on as bad weather. •/ The wind had blown up a storm. / •/ A storm had blown up. / 5. To copy in bigger form; enlarge. •/ He blew up the snapshot to a larger size. /

[blow up in one’s face] {v. phr.} , {informal} To fail completely and with unexpected force. •/ The thief’s plan to rob the bank blew up in his face when a policeman stopped him. /

[blue]See: BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, BOLT FROM THE BLUE, ONCE IN A BLUE MOON, OUT OF THE BLUE or OUT OF A CLEAR BLUE SKY.

[blue around the gills]See: GREEN AROUND THE GILLS.

[blue collar worker] {n. phr.} A manual laborer who is probably a labor union member. •/ Because Jack’s father is a blue collar worker, Jack was so anxious to become an intellectual. / Contrast: WHITE COLLAR WORKER.

[blue in the face] {adj. phr.} , {informal} Very angry or upset; excited and very emotional. •/ Tom argued with Bill until he was blue in the face. / •/ Mary scolded Jane until she was blue in the face, but Jane kept on using Mary’s paints. /

[blue Monday] {n.} A Monday when you have to work after a happy weekend. •/ It was blue Monday and John nodded sleepily over his books. / •/ Housewives sometimes wish they could sleep through blue Monday. /

[blue-pencil] {v.} To edit. •/ The editor blue-penciled John’s manuscript. /

[bluff]See: CALL ONE’S BLUFF.

[blurt out] {v. phr.} To suddenly say something even if one was not planning to do so, or if it was not expected of them. •/ "My brother Bob is in jail," Tony blurted out, before anybody could stop him. /

[blush]See: AT FIRST BLUSH.

[board]See: ACROSS THE BOARD, COLLEGE BOARDS, GO BY THE BOARD or PASS BY THE BOARD, ON BOARD, SANDWICH BOARD.

[boat]See: BURN ONE’S BRIDGES also BURN ONE’S BOATS, IN THE SAME BOAT, MISS THE BOAT, ROCK THE BOAT.

[bobby-soxer] {n.} A teen-aged girl. (1940s idiom) •/ My two daughters, age 13 and 14, are typical bobby-soxers. /

[bob up]See: POP UP(1).

[body]See: KEEP BODY AND SOUL TOGETHER.

[body blow] {n.} , {informal} A great disappointment; a bitter failure. •/ When he failed to get on the team it came as a body blow to him. /

[body English] {n.} , {informal} The wishful attempt to make a ball move in the right direction after it has been hit or let go, by twisting the body in the desired direction. •/ He tried to help the putt fall by using body English. /

[bog down] {v. phr.} To be immobilized in mud, snow, etc.; slow down. •/ Our research got bogged down for a lack of appropriate funding. / •/ Don’t get bogged down in too much detail when you write an action story. /

[bog down, to get bogged down] {v. phr.} , {mostly intransitive or passive} 1. To stop progressing; to slow to a halt. •/ Work on the new building bogged down, because the contractor didn’t deliver the needed concrete blocks. / 2. To become entangled with a variety of obstacles making your efforts unproductive or unsatisfying. •/ The novelist wrote tittle last summer because she got bogged down in housework. /

[boggle the mind] {v. phr.} , {informal} To stop the rational thinking process by virtue of being too fantastic or incredible. •/ It boggles the mind that John should have been inside a flying saucer! /

[boil]See: MAKE ONE’S BLOOD BOIL or MAKE THE BLOOD BOIL.

[boil down] {v.} 1. To boil away some of the water from; make less by boiling. •/ She boiled down the maple sap to a thick syrup. / •/ The fruit juice boiled down until it was almost not good for jelly. / 2. To reduce the length of; cut down; shorten. •/ The reporter boiled the story down to half the original length. / 3. To reduce itself to; come down to; be briefly or basically. •/ The whole discussion boils down to the question of whether the government should fix prices. /

[boil over] {v. phr.} 1. To rise due to boiling and overflow down the sides of a pan or a pot. •/ "Watch out!" Jane cried. "The milk is boiling over on the stove!" / 2. To become enraged to the point of being unable to contain oneself. •/ John took a lot of abuse from his boss, but after 25 minutes he suddenly boiled over and told him what he thought of him. /

[boiling point] {n.} 1. The temperature at which a liquid boils. •/ The boiling point of water is 272° Fahrenheit./ 2. The time when you become very angry. •/ He has a low boiling point. / •/ After being teased for a long time, John reached the boiling point. / •/ When John made the same mistake for the fourth time, his teacher reached the boiling point.__/ Compare: BLOW UP(1b), MAKE ONE’S BLOOD BOIL.

[bolt from the blue] {n. phr.} Something sudden and unexpected; an event that you did not see coming; a great and usually unpleasant surprise; shock. •/ We had been sure she was in Chicago, so her sudden appearance was a bolt from the blue. / •/ His decision to resign was a bolt from the blue. / Compare: OUT OF THE BLUE.

[bombshell]See: EXPLODE A BOMBSHELL.

[bond]See: SAVINGS BOND.