blowup

Hi,

In first episode of the first series of the Lie To Me seriel, following sentence is used:

Some blowup at the Justice Department, about a high school teacher that was killed in the Northwest.

Now I can feel what the sentence means, but what exactly is blowup? Does that word mean "important thing" or is it describing that they are anxious in justice departement?
Also is it colloquial word or can be also used to be e.g. to describe something importand during meeting with a boss at work?

Thanks a lot for answer.

I would have written it with a hyphen: a blow-up. You are on the right track with "anxious". It seems to refer to some kind of over-reaction at the Justice Department, whereby this issue had been (and here comes a popular idiom) blown up out of proportion. It means it has been given more attention or significance than it deserves.

From dictionary.com
blow·up

[bloh-uhp] Show IPA
noun
1.an explosion.

2.👁 Tick :tick:


3.Also, blow-up. an enlargement of a photograph.

I almost agree with Edinburgher, and he is probably right about this example. A blow-up is a big reaction, but I don't feel that it always refers to a reaction that is out of proportion.

There was a huge blow-up when they finally realized he had been stealing from the pension fund for years.

Imagine the reaction if a bomb went off. People are shocked, some people are hurt, some my be killed. There is a lot of damage and it will be a while before things are back to normal. A "blow-up" is a metaphor for this.

See the definition cited by SDGraham. Also note that in AE, there's no hyphen.