ETYM AS. blaest a puff of wind, a blowing; akin to Icel. blâstr, Old High Germ. blâst, and from a verb akin to Icel. blâsa to blow, Old High Germ. blâsan, Goth. bl��san. Related to Blow to eject air.
1. (Baseball) A long and hard-hit fly ball.
2. An explosion (as of dynamite).

See burn (definition 1).

1. To make a strident sound; SYN. blare.
2. To use explosives on; SYN. strafe, shell.

Industrial method of freezing substances such as foods by blowing very cold air over them. See deep freezing. blast-freezing

A striking reminder of an earlier time; something that excites nostalgia.

For smelting of iron from iron oxide ores; combustion is intensified by a blast of air.
Smelting furnace used to extract metals from their ores, chiefly pig iron from iron ore. The temperature is raised by the injection of an air blast.
In the extraction of iron the ingredients of the furnace are iron ore, coke (carbon), and limestone. The coke is the fuel and provides the carbon monoxide for the reduction of the iron ore; the limestone acts as a flux, removing impurities.
The principle has been known for thousands of years, but the present blast furnace is a heavy engineering development combining a number of special techniques. SYN. blast-furnace