1. verb To destroy something through an explosion. They plan to blow up that old apartment building and replace it with shops and luxury condos.

2. verb To explode something. Our poor dog is hiding under the bed because our neighbors celebrate the Fourth of July by blowing up tons of fireworks.

3. verb To inflate. Can you help me blow up these balloons for the birthday party? I need to blow up one of my bike tires—it's a little flat right now.

4. verb To increase in size. If you can't read the text at this size, I can blow it up a little bit more. For my mom's birthday, I blew up that picture of our entire family at my graduation and gave it to her as a gift.

5. verb To lose one's temper in a display of anger. I'm sorry that I blew up at you like that—work is so frustrating right now that I have no patience left when I get home. Don't blow up at me—I didn't make that mistake!

6. verb To become very popular, often suddenly. I used to think I was the only one who liked that band, but they're really popular at my school now—it's like they blew up overnight.

7. verb To make something seem more important, negative, or significant than it really is; to exaggerate something or focus unnecessary attention on something. In this usage, a noun or pronoun is often used between "blow" and "up." I'm sure he didn't mean anything by that comment—don't blow it up too much. Of course she's mad at me for not calling her back—you can always count on my mom to blow something up!

8. verb To begin suddenly, as of a storm or other windy weather condition. The storm blew up so quickly that I didn't have a chance to move the patio furniture before it started pouring rain.

9. verb To fail or fall apart. My plans of being productive this weekend blew up when I got really sick on Friday night.

10. verb, slang To receive a lot of phone calls and/or text messages in a short period of time. This phrase typically uses the form "blowing up." A: "Wow, you're really blowing up right now." B: "Ugh, it's just this stupid group text. The other people in it text each other every five seconds!" The senator's phones were blowing up as his constituents called en masse to urge him to vote against the confirmation.

11. noun An intense argument or disagreement. In this usage, the phrase is often written as one word. Our neighbors had a real blowup last night—we could hear them screaming at each other through the walls.

12. noun A larger version of something, such as a photo. In this usage, the phrase is often written as one word. For her birthday, I gave my mom a poster-size blowup of that picture of our entire family from my graduation.

13. noun A failure or collapse. In this usage, the phrase is often written as one word. The blowup of the management team was another big setback for the fledgling company.