to blew off course
1
5.6
- phrasal verb
:
desviarse
- They had to change their route after the strong winds blew them off course during the voyage.
- get blown off course
Examples
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The storm caused the ship to blew off course and drift away from its intended path.
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They have to be careful not to be blown off course based on a poll that could be an outlier.
Blog text (4) -
Pretty easy to get blown off course.
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During the night, however, on his way back to Ball, two ships were blown off course in a storm.
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As I reckon it, counting from the time we were blown off course, we're not on an island.
Fiction book (1995) -
During the night time escape from Britain, some transports were blown off course again.
-
Peps began to trot down the lake toward the dark smudge of the Isle de la Frontiers, quartering into the wind to avoid being blown off course.
Fiction book (2002) -
It came about in this way: a freedman of Annius Plocamus, who had gained a tax contract for the Red Sea from the Roman treasury, was sailing around Arabia when he was blown off course by the north wind.
Academic text (2010) -
A Norse trader named Bjarni Herjolffson was blown off course while sailing from Iceland to Greenland in 985.
Fiction book (2000) -
It has no indigenous population, so the human past of this tiny island began when it was settled in 1612, three years after English admiral Sir George Somers was blown off course and onto its treacherous reefs en route to Jamestown.
Academic text (2009)
Synonyms
19
7.3
To become chaotic and stop following a plan
4
3.3
Leave a main route, area, or topic and go in a different direction
Antonyms
How Off Course
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to be deviated from the intended direction' is directly derivable from combining 'blow' (to be moved by wind or force) with 'off' (away from) and 'course' (route), producing the clear image of something being blown away from its route. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and even when used metaphorically for plans it remains predictable, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will likely understand it.
Etymology
Blew off course comes from the clear image of wind or a storm that blew a ship or plane away from its planned course. That's why we now say a plan, trip, or project 'not going as planned' when it is suddenly pushed away from its goal by outside forces.