BL'AST, v.t. [Literally, to strike.] To make to wither by some pernicious influence, as too much heat or moisture, or other destructive cause; or to check growth and prevent from coming to maturity and producing fruit; to blight, as trees or plants.

1. A gust or puff of wind; or a sudden gust of wind.
2. The sound made by blowing a wind instrument. – Shak.
3. Any pernicious or destructive influence upon animals or plants.
4. The infection of any thing pestilential; a blight on plants.
5. A sudden compression of air, attended with a shock, caused by the discharge of cannon.
6. A forcible stream of air from the mouth, from the bellows or the like.
7. A violent explosion of gunpowder, in splitting rocks, and the explosion of inflammable air in a mine.
8. The whole blowing of a forge necessary to melt one supply of ore; a common use of the word among workmen in forges in America.

1. To make to wither by some pernicious influence, as too much heat or moisture, or other destructive cause; or to check growth and prevent from coming to maturity and producing fruit; to blight, as trees or plants.
2. To affect with some sudden violence, plague, calamity, or destructive influence, which destroys or causes to fail; as, to blast pride or hopes. The figurative senses of this verb are taken from the blasting of plants, and all express the idea of checking growth, preventing maturity, impairing, injuring, destroying, or disappointing of the intended effect; as, to blast credit, or reputation; to blast designs.
3. To confound, or strike with force, by a loud blast or din. – Shak.
4. To split rocks by an explosion of gunpowder. They did not stop to blast this ore. – Forster's Kalm's Travels.

1. A suffix or terminal formative, used principally in biological terms, and signifying growth, formation; as, bioblast, epiblast, mesoblast, etc.
2. 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.
   Thomson.

3. To injure, as by a noxious wind] to cause to wither; to stop or check the growth of, and prevent from fruit-bearing, by some pernicious influence; to blight; to shrivel.
   
   

   Seven thin ears, and blasted with the east wind.
   Gen. xii. 6.

4. To be blighted or withered; as, the bud blasted in the blossom.
5. A forcible stream of air from an orifice, as from a bellows, the mouth, etc. Hence: The continuous blowing to which one charge of ore or metal is subjected in a furnace; as, to melt so many tons of iron at a blast.
   
   

   * The terms hot blast and cold blast are employed to designate whether the current is heated or not heated before entering the furnace. A blast furnace is said to be in blast while it is in operation, and out of blast when not in use.

6. Hence, to affect with some sudden violence, plague, calamity, or blighting influence, which destroys or causes to fail; to visit with a curse; to curse; to ruin; as, to blast pride, hopes, or character.
   
   

   I'll cross it, though it blast me.
   Shak.

   Blasted with excess of light.
   T. Gray.

7. To blow; to blow on a trumpet.
   
   
   [Obs.]

   Toke his blake trumpe faste
   And gan to puffen and to blaste.
   Chaucer.

8. The exhaust steam from and 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.
9. To confound by a loud blast or din.
   
   

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

10. The sound made by blowing a wind instrument; strictly, the sound produces at one breath.
    
    

    One blast upon his bugle horn
    Were worth a thousand men.
    Sir W. Scott.

    The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.
    Bryant.

11. To rend open by any explosive agent, as gunpowder, dynamite, etc.; to shatter; as, to blast rocks.
12. A sudden, pernicious effect, as if by a noxious wind, especially on animals and plants; a blight.
    
    

    By the blast of God they perish.
    Job iv. 9.

    Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast.
    Shak.

13. The act of rending, or attempting to rend, heavy masses of rock, earth, etc., by the explosion of gunpowder, dynamite, etc.; also, the charge used for this purpose.
    
    
    "Large blasts are often used." Tomlinson.
14. A flatulent disease of sheep.
    
    

    Blast furnace, a furnace, usually a shaft furnace for smelting ores, into which air is forced by pressure. -- Blast hole, a hole in the bottom of a pump stock through which water enters. -- Blast nozzle, a fixed or variable orifice in the delivery end of a blast pipe; -- called also blast orifice. -- In full blast, in complete operation; in a state of great activity. See Blast, n., 2. [Colloq.]