blow up in one's face
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Verb
[edit]blow up in one's face (third-person singular simple present blows up in one's face, present participle blowing up in one's face, simple past blew up in one's face, past participle blown up in one's face)
- (intransitive, idiomatic) To fail disastrously.
- 1972, James Whittaker, Albert Trieschman, editors, Children Away from Home: A Sourcebook of Residential Treatment:
- Whether the specific pecking order of the game I let them play today had anything to do with the fact that it blew up in my face after five minutes is a question that can be answered only in empirical terms.
- 1999, Dena Rosenbloom, Mary Beth Williams, Barbara E. Watkins, Life after trauma: a workbook for healing:
- If I took the risk to speak with my friend and the whole thing blew up in my face, I'd probably feel ashamed and exposed whenever I thought about it for a very, very long time.
- 2002, Joan Barfoot, Critical injuries, page 118:
- So I wish you luck, but don't come crying to me when it blows up in your face.
Translations
[edit]fail disastrously
|