One syllable: Blew.
bloo
/blu/
Blew is pronounced bloo (/blu/). It has one syllable (Blew), with the stress on "Blew". Blew is pronounced as a single-syllable word meaning to cast wind or air outward, typically used for the past tense of blow. In noun form, it can refer to a strong gust or a past event of blowing. The term is often encountered in weather reports, poetry, or idiomatic expressions describing past wind or a metaphorical venting of emotions.
nounBlew is pronounced as a single-syllable word meaning to cast wind or air outward, typically used for the past tense of blow. In noun form, it can refer to a strong gust or a past event of blowing. The term is often encountered in weather reports, poetry, or idiomatic expressions describing past wind or a metaphorical venting of emotions.
"The sailor blew the horn to signal the approach."
"Yesterday, a cold wind blew in from the north."
"She blew out the candles with a quick puff of air."
Blew is pronounced /bluː/. Start with the /b/ bilabial stop, then the /l/ light L-flap at the alveolar ridge, and finish with the long close back rounded vowel /uː/ as in 'blue'. The stress is on the single syllable (monosyllabic). Tip: keep the lips rounded for the /uː/ quality, and ensure the /l/ is light, not a heavy vocalic intrusion. Audio examples: listen to /bluː/ in native speech; you’ll hear a smooth, taut vowel without trailing consonant.
Common mistakes include turning /uː/ into a shorter /u/ as in 'book' or attempting a /j/ glide after the /l/ like /bluːj/ because of awkward tongue movement. Some learners also add an extra vowel after the /uː/ or misplace lip rounding. The fix is to maintain a pure, long /uː/ vowel with rounded lips, keep the /l/ light and syllabic, and end abruptly without extra vowel or consonant.
US, UK, and AU share /bluː/, but there are subtle differences: US often has a tighter /uː/ with less lip rounding, UK remains a slightly more centralized /uː/ with a touch less rounding, and AU tends toward a slightly higher, more centralized vowel with marginally broader lips. Regardless, the onset /bl/ remains consistent. Listen for a crisp /l/ and an elongated /uː/ in all three; the main variation is subtle vowel quality and rhoticity in surrounding words.
The challenge lies in producing a true long /uː/ after a consonant cluster /bl-/, which can invite learners to shorten the vowel or add an extra glide. Additionally, keeping the /l/ light and non-syllabic without letting it darken the vowel requires precise tongue control. Mastery comes from practicing the single smooth nucleus /uː/ with a relaxed jaw and rounded lips, ensuring no trailing sounds afterward.
Blew does not have a silent letter in its standard spelling; all letters contribute to the sound: b is heard, l is vocalized with the /l/ sound, and the u represents the long vowel /uː/. The challenge is more phonetic: achieving the elongated vowel without adding a glide or extra vocalization after the /uː/. Master the clean ending by stopping the vocalization right after the /uː/.
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Blew comes from Old English blo-wan, with the strong verb blow evolving through Proto-Germanic blawanan and Proto-Indo-European *bhlew- meaning to blow or breathe. Its inflection shifted over time, producing blew as the past tense (historically blo-wed) and the past participle we have blown. The pronunciation shifted towards an /uː/ vowel in many dialects, aligning with the Great Vowel Shift patterns that affected long vowels in English. The noun sense of a past gust or event associated with wind arises from the verb sense, used metaphorically to describe past actions or events related to air movement. First recorded uses appear in Middle English texts around the 12th to 14th centuries, with variants in spelling such as blew, blowe, and bloe reflecting phonetic orthography of the period. Over time, the word became fixed in modern spelling and pronunciation as /bluː/ for the noun and past tense, correlating with the long
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💡 These words have similar meanings to "Blew" and can often be used interchangeably.
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Words that rhyme with "Blew"
-lue sounds
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