According to MW, full-blown means
having all of the qualities that are associated with a particular thing or type of person : fully developed
Having used it in this sense recently and noting its similarity (in sound and meaning) to the more easily explainable full-grown, I wondered why blown is in full-blown.
My first suspicion was the blown was an analogy to the product of some craft, like glass-blowing. I was unable to find an entry dedicated to full-blown on Etymonline, though I did find some entries that referred to it, particularly blow v.2:
"to bloom, blossom" (intransitive), from Old English blowan "to flower, blossom, flourish," from Proto-Germanic *blæ- (cf. Old Saxon bloian, Old Frisian bloia, Middle Dutch and Dutch bloeien, Old High German bluoen, German blühen), from PIE *bhle-, extended form of *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" (see bole). This word is the source of the blown in full-blown.
Google nGrams suggests that a horticultural origin may make sense with full-blown. The oldest reference to full-blown I found via nGrams was from "Satirical, humourous & familiar pieces" printed by G.Nicholson and Co., 1795:
"You must know that in my person I am tall and thin, with a fair complexion and light flaxen hair; but of such extreme susceptibility of shame, that, on the smallest subject of confusion, my blood all rushes into my cheeks, and I appear a perfect full-blown rose.
Assuming the origin of full-blown is from this sense of blooming (earlier or contradictory examples welcome), are there other uses of blow or blown familiar to the modern ear that retain or allude to this meaning?
Best Answer
The OED defines full-blown as ‘filled with wind, puffed out (lit. and fig.)’. The contemporary Oxford Dictionaries defines it as ‘fully developed’.
The OED’s earliest citation is from 1615:
The earliest floral use comes later in the same century:
The OED’s etymological note on the term refers to definition 22a of ‘blow’:
One current use is in the expression full-blown AIDS.