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noun

Blowhole n.

A cavern in a cliff, at the water level, opening to the air at its farther extremity, so that the waters rush in with each surge and rise in a lofty jet from the extremity.

A nostril or spiracle in the top of the head of a whale or other cetacean. Note: There are two spiracles or blowholes in the common whales, but only one in sperm whales, porpoises, etc.

A hole in the ice to which whales, seals, etc., come to breathe.

(Founding) An air hole in a casting.

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Etymology of 'Blowhole'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Blowhole" Quotes from Famous Books

... furnished with a cavity containing air, which, shaped by a narrow groove, strikes against the sharp edge and excites vibration in the conical pipe, on the same principle that an organ pipe is made to sound, or of the action of the player's mouth and lips upon the blowhole of the flute. As it will interest the audience to hear the tone of Shakespeare's recorder, Mr. Henry Carte will play an air ...

— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various

... lot of [Page 244] trouble, that is just to Meares and myself with our dogs.... Occasionally when one pictures oneself quite away from trouble of that kind, an old seal will pop his head up at a blowhole a few yards ahead of the team, and they are all on top of him before one can say "knife"! Then one has to rush in with the whip—and everyone of the team of eleven jumps over the harness of the dog next to him, and the harnesses become a muddle that ...

— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... ARCHES. As a sea cave is drilled back into the rock, it may encounter a joint or crevice opened to the surface by percolating water. The shock of the waves soon enlarges this to a blowhole, which one may find on the breezy upland, perhaps a hundred yards and more back from the cliff's edge. In quiet weather the blowhole is a deep well; in storm it plays a fountain as the waves drive through the long tunnel below ...

— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

Words linked to "Blowhole" : vent, venthole, cetacean mammal, air passage, vent-hole, airway, hole