At 5:16:36 AM on Sunday, January 11, 2009, Anatoly Guzaev
wrote:
> It seems to be interesting to mention here the Russian
> verb ???????-pihtety
I would transliterate that <pyxtet'>.
[...]
> Why English 'blow' has the meaning 'explode' beside 'the
> motion of the air'?
English <blow> has undergone an enormous expansion of
senses and constructions in Middle English and later. The
sense 'to shatter, destroy, or otherwise act upon by means
of explosion' is first attested in 1599 (OED). It seems to
me that it's a pretty straightforward extension: when you
blow something up, the debris is indeed blown as if by a
strong wind.
Brian