shoot the breeze

Idioms and Phrases

Also, shoot or throw the bull . Talk idly, chat, as in They've been sitting on the porch for hours, just shooting the breeze , or The guys sit around the locker room, throwing the bull . The first of these slangy terms, alluding to talking into the wind, was first recorded in 1919. In the variant, first recorded in 1908, bull is a shortening of bullshit , and means “empty talk” or “lies.”