to blow great guns

Preserved but no longer current.

Meaning · English

Said of a wind which blows so violently that its noise resembles the roar of artillery.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Nói về gió thổi mạnh đến mức tiếng ồn giống như tiếng súng đại bác

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Common questions

What does “to blow great guns” mean?

Said of a wind which blows so violently that its noise resembles the roar of artillery.

Is “to blow great guns” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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