Blow up general, unfortunately (7)
I believe the answer is:
enlarge
'blow up' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'general unfortunately' is the wordplay.
'unfortunately' indicates an anagram (a bad or unfortunate spelling).
'general' with letters rearranged gives 'ENLARGE'.
(Other definitions for enlarge that I've seen before include "swell?" , "Grow" , "Blow up" , "Dilate" , "Widen" .)