Ablow

Pronunciation

• US IPA: /əˈbloÊŠ/

From - + blow.

Full definition of ablow

Adjective

1. (obsolete, postpositive) Blossoming, blooming, in blossom.
• 1867, Augusta Webster, “Lota”, in A Woman Sold and Other Poems, Macmillan and Co., page 238:“... The flower breaks from its sheath and is ablowAnd gives its richest perfumes.”  And I’d muse, ...
• 1891, Lizette Woodworth Reese, “Hallowmas” (poem), in A Handful of Lavender, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, page 13:You know, the year's not always May —Oh, once the lilacs were ablow !
• 1989, Stephen L. Swynn, Garden Wisdom: Or, from One Generation to Another, Ayer Publishing, ISBN 0836905024, page 110:... against the green, yet, growing in tilled soil, grow stronger and taller than any daffodil can grow in turf : hundreds of them are ablow together, and the very robustness of their splendour ...
2. (dated, postpositive) Blowing or being blown; windy.

Usage notes

Like most adjectives formed from this sense of a-, ablow never serves as an attributive premodifier; one can say “the flowers were ablow”, “ablow, the flowers ...”, and even “... the flowers ablow ...”, but not *“... the ablow flowers”.

- + blow("alteration of below")

Preposition

1. (Scotland) Below.