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.”

Example Sentences

He figures they’ll cross paths at intermission and “shoot the breeze” about what they saw.

From Seattle Times

Catch him after practice and he’s happy to shoot the breeze with a smile on his face.

From Seattle Times

“It felt like they were just shooting the breeze,” recalled Robinson Chavez, whose aching black-and-white photos anchored the series.

From Los Angeles Times

Downes could shoot the breeze about Bruiser for hours, and he readily admits a deep fondness for the elk.

From Seattle Times

Du’s rapport with the audience, as he plays more than a dozen characters in 75 minutes, favors high-fives over confessional hand-wringing, in the manner of a neighborhood kid shooting the breeze.

From New York Times