blow away

verb blows away · blowing away · blew away · blown away

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blow, away.
2. transitive To cause to go away by blowing, or by wind. He blew away the dust which had collected on the book.
3. intransitive To disperse or to depart on currents of air. I didn't have to rake. The leaves just blew away.
4. figuratively, intransitive To leave, depart. She was like / Jazz on a summer's day / Music, high and sweet / Then she just blew away
5. idiomatic, transitive To kill (someone) by shooting them with a firearm. The kid just blew the clerk away.
6. broadly, idiomatic, transitive To utterly destroy, especially with overwhelming force. In the end, the question proved to be academic. When SCP-3125 arrived, whether it knew ω-0 was there or not, it took no special action against it, and had no need to. Most of ω-0's members' anchors were Foundationers, or Foundation-adjacent. With those people's minds blown away in the first strike,
7. US, idiomatic, transitive To flabbergast; to impress greatly. The critics were blown away by their latest album.
8. transitive To overwhelm. Newcastle were completely blown away during the opening half of the match but worked up a head of steam after the interval that saw them score four goals in 19 minutes against a bruised and beleaguered Arsenal.
9. transitive To cause to go away; to get rid of. And when skipper Richie McCaw hoisted the Webb Ellis Trophy high into the night, a quarter of a century of hurt was blown away in an explosion of fireworks and cheering.
10. informal, transitive To delete (data, files, etc.).