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shoot the breeze

verb

Etymology

A slang phrase, alluding to talking into the wind, it was first recorded in 1919. In the variant, first recorded in 1908, bull is used instead of breeze, and means "empty talk" or "lies."

Definitions

  1. To chat idly or generally waste time talking.

    • We were just standing around shooting the breeze.
    • Oh, I've just been upstairs with your boss, shooting the breeze… shooting his fish.
    • Listen, I came here to do some business, not shoot the breeze. If you want to expound your personal philosophies, write another book.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for shoot the breeze. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA