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Definition of "full-blown" []

  • Having blossomed or opened completely: full-blown roses. (adjective)
  • Fully developed or matured. (adjective)
  • Having or displaying all the characteristics necessary for completeness: a full-blown financial crisis. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "full-blown" in a sentence
  • "A battle we did win was establishing a definition of full-blown AIDS that included symptoms common to women and that let them get treatment and financial entitlements, such as disability, available to men."
  • "If the economy's true trend growth rate is even modestly below the 2.25% to 2.5% economists figure, the bank could be forced into raising rates well before what most observers would call a full-blown recovery."
  • "I think all these enabled him, before most Democrats, to understand the doubts that Americans were feeling about Washington and government toward the end of the Great Society—doubts that would erupt into full-blown hostility toward government in the Reagan era."