What does blowpipe mean?
A blowpipe is a long tube, typically several feet in length, through which the user blows forcefully to propel a dart, pellet, or stream of air. In its best-known sense it serves as a quiet hunting weapon: darts, sometimes tipped with poison, are blown from the tube to bring down small game, a technique long practiced by indigenous peoples of South America and Southeast Asia. In craft and science, the term also denotes a narrower pipe used to deliver a focused jet of air or flame—glassblowers shape molten glass on a blowpipe, and nineteenth-century chemists used small blowpipes to intensify flames when testing minerals. The word carries connotations of traditional skill and precision, appearing most often in ethnographic, historical, and craft contexts rather than casual conversation. Its dual identity—as both a simple weapon and an artisan's tool—makes it a compact example of how one implement can span hunting, industry, and laboratory practice across many cultures and centuries.
nounA long tube through which a dart or pellet is blown as a weapon, or a small tube used to direct a stream of air or gas, as in metallurgy, glassworking, or laboratory chemical analysis.
- A tube through which a dart or pellet is blown as a hunting weapon or toy.
- A narrow tube used to blow air into a flame to intensify it, in glassblowing, metalworking, or mineral analysis.
- In pyrotechnics or chemistry, a small pipe delivering compressed air or gas.
"The glassblower shaped the molten ornament at the end of her blowpipe."
"Hunters in the Amazon still take game silently with a blowpipe and poisoned darts."
"The assayer heated the ore sample before the flame using a blowpipe."
Regular pluralization; used when referring to multiple weapons or workshop tools.
"The museum displayed blowpipes from several Amazonian cultures."
Before modern lab equipment, chemists identified minerals by heating them with little more than a breath-driven blowpipe and a candle.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of blowpipe
Blowpipe is a straightforward English compound formed from 'blow' (Old English blāwan, from Proto-Germanic *blēaną) plus 'pipe' (Old English pīpe, ultimately Latin pipare). Such compound formations are common in English craft and tool vocabulary. The word has no exotic cognate lineage beyond these Germanic and Latinate roots shared by ordinary words like bellows, blast, and blower.
How blowpipe is actually used
Mostly technical or historical register today; everyday use survives mainly in discussions of indigenous hunting tools and traditional glassblowing. In American usage 'blowgun' is often preferred for the weapon sense.
Easily confused with blowpipe
A blowgun is specifically the tubular weapon for firing darts, while blowpipe is a broader term that also covers tubes used in metallurgy, glassblowing, and chemistry.