shoot the breeze

noun

1. a wind or current of air, especially a light or moderate one.
2. a wind of 4–31 miles per hour (2–14 m/sec).
3. Informal. an easy task; something done or carried on without difficulty: Finding people to join in the adventure was a breeze.
4. Chiefly British Informal. a disturbance or quarrel.

verb (used without object), breezed, breez·ing.

5. (of the wind) to blow a breeze (usually used impersonally with it as subject): It breezed from the west all day.
6. to move in a self-confident or jaunty manner: She breezed up to the police officer and asked for directions.
7. Informal. to proceed quickly and easily; move rapidly without intense effort (often followed by along, into, or through): He breezed through the task. The car breezed along the highway.

verb (used with object), breezed, breez·ing.

8. to cause to move in an easy or effortless manner, especially at less than full speed: The boy breezed the horse around the track.

Verb Phrases

9. breeze in, Slang.
   1. to win effortlessly: He breezed in with an election plurality of 200,000.
   2. Also breeze into/out.to move or act with a casual or careless attitude: He breezed out without paying attention to anyone.
10. breeze up, Atlantic States. to become windy.

Idioms

11. shoot/bat the breeze, Slang.
    1. to converse aimlessly; chat.
    2. to talk nonsense or exaggerate the truth: He likes to shoot the breeze, so don’t take everything he says seriously.

noun

1. a gentle or light wind
2. meteorol a wind of force two to six inclusive on the Beaufort scale
3. informal an easy task or state of easebeing happy here is a breeze
4. informal, mainly British a disturbance, esp a lively quarrel
5. shoot the breeze informal to chat

verb (intr)

6. to move quickly or casuallyhe breezed into the room
7. (of wind) to blowthe south wind breezed over the fields

noun

1. an archaic or dialect name for the gadfly

noun

1. ashes of coal, coke, or charcoal used to make breeze blocks

n.

1560s, “north or northeast wind,” from Old Spanish briza “cold northeast wind;” in West Indies and Spanish Main, the sense shifting to “northeast trade wind,” then “fresh wind from the sea.” English sense of “gentle or light wind” is from 1620s. An alternative possibility is that the English word is from East Frisian brisen “to blow fresh and strong.” The slang for “something easy” is American English, c.1928.

v.

“move briskly,” 1904, from breeze (n.). Related: Breezed; breezing.

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.”

In addition to the idiom beginning with breeze

• breeze in

also see:

• hands down (in a breeze)
• shoot the breeze