blowy

comparative blowier · superlative blowiest

1. Windy or breezy.

   2014, Guy Nowell, “RMSIR 2014 — Penang to Langkawi. An espresso race,” sail-world.com, 21 November, 2014, Equally almost traditional is that this is the blowiest leg of the regatta.

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   1789, John O’Keeffe, Modern Antiques; or, The Merry Mourners, Act II, Scene 3, in The Dramatic Works of John O’Keeffe, London, 1798, Volume I, p. 351, All my doors open! this blowy night! reminds me of the Lisbon earthquake; but my storm-cap has protected me.

   […] one blowy July afternoon, as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving among the trees.

   1910, Rudyard Kipling, “Gloriana”, in Rewards and Fairies

   … This ship is nice, with our heels hitting the deck together. This is the blowy corner and each time we turn it I slant forward against the wind and pull my coat together without losing step with Dick.

   1934, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter I, in Malcolm Cowley, editor, Tender is the Night […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1951, →OCLC, book II (Rosemary’s Angle: 1919–1925), page 55

   Why can’t you stay in when the weather is muddy and blowy?

   1946, Mervyn Peake, “Flay Brings a Message”, in Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode

   Someone tell me one thing that's good about sand. It gets so hot sometimes you can't even walk on it, it gets into your eyes when it's blowy, it gets stuck to the hairs on my back, it gets up your nose, in your ears and of course, worst of all, it gets up your clacker.

   1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 95

2. Billowy, blowing or waving in the wind. (of fabric, hair, etc.)

   […] I remember now. You had the sun behind you, filtering through your amazing blowy hair, red hair […]

   2012, Dawn French, chapter 16, in Oh Dear Silvia, Penguin

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   A panoramic view of all the lives ruined by the financial markets, from the midlevel banker just trying to meet her monthly quota to the overly loyal gangster who doesn’t realize that loud, blowy Hawaiian shirts are the opposite of subtle.

   2013 October 17, Hua Hsu, “King of Hong Kong: Johnnie To and the violent, inventive evolution of H.K. cinema”, in Grantland

3. Susceptible to drifting. (of soil)

   1929, U.S. Department of Agriculture Radio Service, Office of Information, Farm Science Snapshots, 19 October, 1929, And fall plowing except on blowy soils also will be good for the spring sown crops.

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   1938, Angus Henry McDonald, Erosion and its Control in Oklahoma Territory, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication No. 301, p. 17, Some farmers, however, quit raising cowpeas on blowy land, because they claimed it aggravated drifting.

plural blowies

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of blowie.