Word.ws English Dictionary

body blows

body blows is the plural of body blow.

Meaning of body blow

Noun

body blow (plural body blows)

  1. A severely injurious or damaging physical strike or impact.
    • The fight is not all one-sided. Lion is taking a savage beating as the two flagships trade body blows almost independent of the furious carronade going on behind them.2018 October 17, Drachinifel, 14:13 from the start, in Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918, archived from the original on 04 Aug 2022
    1. A hard punch struck to the torso.
      • He led at Berks's head, as he came rushing in, and missed him, receiving a severe body blow in return.1896, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 11, in Rodney Stone
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) A serious setback; a traumatizing event which prevents or hinders continuation of an activity.
    • "I can hardly exaggerate the body blow to the Service such a decision would give. Nobody will believe in it again."1910, Stewart Edward White, chapter 43, in The Rules of the Game

Questions about body blows

What is body blows the plural of?
Body blows is the plural of body blow.

Words near body blows in the dictionary

  1. body armour
  2. body art
  3. body bag
  4. body bags
  5. body blow
  6. body blows
  7. body board
  8. body boards
  9. body box
  10. body boxes
  11. body broker

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: body blows (page history and authors); body blow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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