mind-blow, n. (1968)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

mind-blow, n. (HDAS 1971; OED3 has it as a verb but not as a noun)

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=137331
1968 Harvard Crimson 1 Nov. He [sc. Alan Heimert] knows all the drug-age
neologisms and uses them with a purposeful heavyhandedness. A "mind blow"
that comes off his tongue awkwardly and belligerently, with quotations
marks around it, reminds him that he is not, after all, native to the
generation which minted the phrase.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=351331
1969 Harvard Crimson 17 Nov.  _Night_, the final play of the trilogy, is
in every way the third act of the evening. It is an answer to the chaotic
world depicted in the first two plays, a goodbye-to-all-that farewell to
the sixties. It is both devastating and exhilirating, and even bigger
mind-blow than _Morning_ or _Noon_.

(The latter article, "A Mindblow at the Loeb, A Farewell to the Sixties",
was written by Crimson film and theater critic Frank Rich!)


--Ben Zimmer