blow away

Verb

blow away (third-person singular simple present blows away, present participle blowing away, simple past blew away, past participle 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.
   • Perhaps as startling as the sheer toll was the devastation to some of the state’s well-known locales. Boardwalks along the beach in Seaside Heights, Belmar and other towns on the Jersey Shore were blown away. Amusement parks, arcades and restaurants all but vanished. Bridges to barrier islands...2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, New York Times, retrieved 31 Oct 2012
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 away1982, Steve Winwood, Will Jennings, “Valerie”
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...2019 August 26, qntm, “Unthreaded”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 162
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.2011 February 5, Paul Fletcher, “Newcastle 4 - 4 Arsenal”, in BBC
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.2011 October 23, Tom Fordyce, “2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France”, in BBC Sport
10. (informal, transitive) To delete (data, files, etc.).