have a blast

H

have a blast (idiom)
/hæv ə blæst/

Variants

1. had a blast
2. having a blast
3. blast (informal noun use: “It was a blast”)

Meanings

• To have a great time and enjoy oneself a lot.
• To experience something very exciting or fun.
• In other words, to fully let loose and enjoy without worry.

Synonyms: have fun; enjoy oneself; have a great time; live it up; party.

Example Sentences

1. We had a blast at the carnival, riding all the roller coasters.
2. The kids are having a blast splashing in the pool.
3. She went on vacation and really had a blast, forgetting about work completely.
4. The concert was amazing — it was a real blast from start to finish. (variant use: noun)

Origin and History

Most scholars trace have a blast to a mid-20th-century U.S. slang development in which blast—originally “a gust of wind” and then “an explosion”—was extended metaphorically to any intense, exhilarating experience. By the early 1950s American English already used blast for “a noisy party; a good time,” making the leap to the set phrase have a blast a small one: the energy and ‘impact’ of an explosion mapped neatly onto lively fun. This trajectory fits long-standing figurative moves in English where high-intensity nouns (a kick, a gas, a riot) come to mean “great fun.”

Country of Origin

Evidence points to the United States as the cradle of the expression. The idiom’s emergence is securely located in U.S. colloquial speech of the mid-20th century, consistent with American popular culture’s role in exporting the wording.

First Printed Usage

While blast meaning “a very good time” is attested in the 1950s, one of the earliest printed have a blast–type wordings appears in Frederick Kohner’s teen novel Affairs of Gidget (1963):

“We’ll be havin’ a blast!”

The same decade shows the idiom entering popular magazines and youth fiction. A later example from Harper’s Magazine (July 1970) reads:

“Meyer himself had a blast.”

By the 1970s, the expression was well established in American writing, as seen in Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini (1976):

“You will have yourself a blast.”

How the Idiom Took Hold

The idiom’s popularization grew out of the postwar and “atomic-age” soundscape, where blast was a vivid, familiar word. Youth culture of the 1950s and 1960s, including surf fiction and magazine journalism, readily adopted it. Once blast stably meant “a good time,” the collocation have a blast naturally emerged and spread into mainstream English.

Good, Time