What's the difference between blow and puff?

Blow


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To flower; to blossom; to bloom.
  • (v. t.) To cause to blossom; to put forth (blossoms or flowers).
  • (n.) A blossom; a flower; also, a state of blossoming; a mass of blossoms.
  • (n.) A forcible stroke with the hand, fist, or some instrument, as a rod, a club, an ax, or a sword.
  • (n.) A sudden or forcible act or effort; an assault.
  • (n.) The infliction of evil; a sudden calamity; something which produces mental, physical, or financial suffering or loss (esp. when sudden); a buffet.
  • (v. i.) To produce a current of air; to move, as air, esp. to move rapidly or with power; as, the wind blows.
  • (v. i.) To send forth a forcible current of air, as from the mouth or from a pair of bellows.
  • (v. i.) To breathe hard or quick; to pant; to puff.
  • (v. i.) To sound on being blown into, as a trumpet.
  • (v. i.) To spout water, etc., from the blowholes, as a whale.
  • (v. i.) To be carried or moved by the wind; as, the dust blows in from the street.
  • (v. i.) To talk loudly; to boast; to storm.
  • (v. t.) To force a current of air upon with the mouth, or by other means; as, to blow the fire.
  • (v. t.) To drive by a current air; to impel; as, the tempest blew the ship ashore.
  • (v. t.) To cause air to pass through by the action of the mouth, or otherwise; to cause to sound, as a wind instrument; as, to blow a trumpet; to blow an organ.
  • (v. t.) To clear of contents by forcing air through; as, to blow an egg; to blow one's nose.
  • (v. t.) To burst, shatter, or destroy by an explosion; -- usually with up, down, open, or similar adverb; as, to blow up a building.
  • (v. t.) To spread by report; to publish; to disclose.
  • (v. t.) To form by inflation; to swell by injecting air; as, to blow bubbles; to blow glass.
  • (v. t.) To inflate, as with pride; to puff up.
  • (v. t.) To put out of breath; to cause to blow from fatigue; as, to blow a horse.
  • (v. t.) To deposit eggs or larvae upon, or in (meat, etc.).
  • (n.) A blowing, esp., a violent blowing of the wind; a gale; as, a heavy blow came on, and the ship put back to port.
  • (n.) The act of forcing air from the mouth, or through or from some instrument; as, to give a hard blow on a whistle or horn; to give the fire a blow with the bellows.
  • (n.) The spouting of a whale.
  • (n.) A single heat or operation of the Bessemer converter.
  • (n.) An egg, or a larva, deposited by a fly on or in flesh, or the act of depositing it.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Certainly, Saunders did not land a single blow that threatened to stop his opponent, although he took quite a few himself that threatened his titles in the final few rounds.
  • (2) The ruling centre-right coalition government of Angela Merkel was dealt a blow by voters in a critical regional election on Sunday after the centre-left opposition secured a wafer-thin victory, setting the scene for a tension-filled national election in the autumn when everything will be up for grabs.
  • (3) "The government should be doing all it can to put the UK at the forefront of this energy revolution not blowing hot and cold on the issue.
  • (4) Rapid swelling of the knee following a blow or twisting injury is considered a significant injury.
  • (5) Drainage of contrast medium from the maxillary sinus during blowing and sniffing was studied by cine-roentgenography in 11 healthy subjects.
  • (6) It would cost their own businesses hundreds of millions of pounds in transaction costs, it would blow a massive hole in their balance of payments, it would leave them having to pick up the entirety of UK debt.
  • (7) The phrase “self-inflicted blow” was one he used repeatedly, along with the word “glib” – applied to his Vote Leave opponents.
  • (8) Losing Murphy is a blow to the Oscars which has struggled to liven up its image amid a general decline in its TV ratings over the last couple of decades and a rush of awards shows that appeal to younger crowds, such as the MTV Movie Awards.
  • (9) Hagan’s defeat came as a shock and a heavy blow for the Democratic party in North Carolina, a purple state that now has no Democratic senator or governor for the first time in 30 years.
  • (10) The case of a 32-year-old man who suffered a blow to his left supraorbital region and eyebrow in an automatic closing door is reported to draw attention to the uncommon but trivial nature of this injury which may result in profound visual loss.
  • (11) It's almost starting to feel like we're back in the good old days of July 2005, when Paris lost out to London in the battle to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, a defeat immediately interpreted by France as a bitter blow to Gallic ideals of fair play and non-commercialism and yet another undeserved triumph for the underhand, free-market manoeuvrings of perfidious Albion.
  • (12) A rather pessimistic wind is blowing over cancer chemotherapy, while a not very objective enthusiasm for second generation immunotherapy is raising its head.
  • (13) The departure of Emmerson – who said in a statement that no allegations had been put to him – is a huge blow.
  • (14) On second impacts, the GSI rose considerably because the shell and liner of the DH-151 cracked and the suspension of the "141" stretched during the first blow.
  • (15) The files, which were made available to the Guardian , the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.
  • (16) Maybe there was a wish to go for these stronger story formulations, more extreme situations to try to get the energy up to comfortably blow the lid off.” Miller pointed out to Franzen that he has developed something of a reputation as a misanthrope.
  • (17) Pure blow-out fracture or comminuted facial fracture, double vision and amnesia emerged as additional factors which yielded an efficient scoring system with a sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 90% for the population upon which it was based.
  • (18) It would strike a blow against its excessively adversarial ways of working, the two sides of a divided house braying at each other across the floor.
  • (19) However, a no show from the leader of the Commonwealth's biggest member would be a huge blow to the credibility of the organisation.
  • (20) All of which would be perfectly normal (after all, if there's anything valencianos love more than blowing off their fingers, it's complaining about their team) but for one thing: it was only just after half past nine and there was still an hour to go against hated rivals Real Madrid.

Puff


Definition:

  • (n.) A sudden and single emission of breath from the mouth; hence, any sudden or short blast of wind; a slight gust; a whiff.
  • (n.) Anything light and filled with air.
  • (n.) A puffball.
  • (n.) a kind of light pastry.
  • (n.) A utensil of the toilet for dusting the skin or hair with powder.
  • (n.) An exaggerated or empty expression of praise, especially one in a public journal.
  • (n.) To blow in puffs, or with short and sudden whiffs.
  • (n.) To blow, as an expression of scorn; -- with at.
  • (n.) To breathe quick and hard, or with puffs, as after violent exertion.
  • (n.) To swell with air; to be dilated or inflated.
  • (n.) To breathe in a swelling, inflated, or pompous manner; hence, to assume importance.
  • (v. t.) To drive with a puff, or with puffs.
  • (v. t.) To repel with words; to blow at contemptuously.
  • (v. t.) To cause to swell or dilate; to inflate; to ruffle with puffs; -- often with up; as, a bladder puffed with air.
  • (v. t.) To inflate with pride, flattery, self-esteem, or the like; -- often with up.
  • (v. t.) To praise with exaggeration; to flatter; to call public attention to by praises; to praise unduly.
  • (a.) Puffed up; vain.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The 68C intermolt puff of Drosophila melanogaster contains a cluster of three glue protein genes, Sgs-3, Sgs-7, and Sgs-8.
  • (2) The results indicated that smoke, as opposed to sham puffs, significantly reduced reports of cigarette craving, and local anesthesia significantly blocked this immediate reduction in craving produced by smoke inhalation.
  • (3) Neurons in deprived puffs and interpuffs were generally similar in size to those in nondeprived regions, although CO-reactive cells were significantly smaller in the deprived puffs of monkeys enucleated for 28.5 or 60 wks.
  • (4) In regions without temperature-induced puffs RNA synthesis and its transport are apparently delayed under influence of heat shock.
  • (5) Joaquin Rodriguez Oliver is amusing himself by trying to take a puff of a cigar in his saddle.
  • (6) However, in a double-cue conditioning paradigm in which both command words were presented alone on different trials and reinforced, response latency was longer and puff attenuation poorer among Vs than when the UCS was signaled by a unique cue.
  • (7) These two puffs are located at the end of the E12 inversion.
  • (8) The results that while in the control T3L and T2L nuclei (22 degrees C), the 93D puff shows a higher level of transcriptional activity than in the Oregon R+ or compound stocks used as controls, in T3L and T2L nuclei from heat-shocked sets (37 degrees C), 93D does not show further induction compared with heat-shocked controls, and the 87C puff is 2.8 times more active than the 87A puff.
  • (9) A previously described smoking apparatus (20) was used for measurement of puff volume and inhaled tar.
  • (10) Similar to area 17, more GABA- and glycine-labeled neurons were observed within the puff regions than in nonpuff regions.
  • (11) He added: "Why on earth is this useless Goverment pandering to Puffs?
  • (12) Male volunteers for mass radiography examination, aged 40 or more, were questioned about their sputum production, smoking habits, and, when applicable, their method of smoking cigarettes.Of 5,438 cigarette smokers 460 (8.4%) smoked their cigarettes without removing the cigarette from the mouth between puffs ("drooping" cigarette smokers) whereas the rest smoked in the normal manner.Persons who admitted to producing sputum from their chests on most days of the year or on most days for at least three months of the year for a minimum of two years were classified as chronic bronchitics in the absence of other causative disease.The rate of chronic bronchitis among the "drooping" cigarette smokers (41.5%) was considerably greater than that among those smoking cigarettes in the normal manner (33.6%).
  • (13) In experiment 3, average puff volumes and CO boosts were examined during smoking periods with short (3, 10, and 30 minutes) deprivation intervals.
  • (14) The home side lost Raheem Sterling, who injured a groin in a challenge with Juan Mata, and even when they pinned back their opponents for periods of the second half it was a lot of huff and puff without too much guile.
  • (15) These data support previous suggestions indicating a substantial contribution of transcriptional products from small puffs and interbands to the whole transcriptional system of polytene chromosomes.
  • (16) The number of NPY-containing neurons in the puffs is substantially less than that expected in an equal volume of the interpuffs (X2 = 13.86; df = 1; P less than 0.001).
  • (17) The rearing of insects at a temperature of 29 degrees resulted in puff changes: the activity of some puffs increased or depressed, some puffs were inhibited, other puffs were induced newly.
  • (18) The CO yields were found to increase with puff volume and tobacco moisture, decrease with increased paper porosity, but remain essentially constant with puff duration.
  • (19) T he Japanese have a saying”, said Willi Hartenstein, pausing for a reflective puff on a cheroot.
  • (20) Dosage for an acute attack in children is 1 puff (200 micrograms), repeated within 5 minutes if necessary; in adults 1-3 puffs can be given.