Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a group, usu. of men, bonding through conversation, reminiscence, jokes, songs etc.

1909		Reno Gaz.-Jrnl (NV) 26 Nov. 6/5: [At] ‘The Bannock Bullfest of the Independent Order of the Midnight Sons’ [...] the head and heart are cheered by new and oft-told tales, songs and a general good time.
1917		K. MacLeish letter 17 Sept. in Rossano Price of Honor (1991) 21: We planned to keep the owner engaged in a vigorous bull fest.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 288: The monthly meetings were nothing but ‘bull fests,’ or as one cynical member put it, ‘We wear a gold helmet on our sweaters and chew the fat once a month’.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 581: The only report that I have been able to find on the vocabulary of incarcerated orphans indicates that the young inmates speak a jargon made up of borrowings from both school slang and criminal cant. From the former come bull-fest, collegiate, nifty and pash.
1943		Bayler & Carnes Last Man Off Wake Island 123: The boys would come over and we’d ‘shoot the breeze’ in long bull-fests.
1950		Miami Dly News-Record (Miami, OK) 21 Mar. 1/4: They also told of an early morning ‘bullfest’ by students [...] the talk in the discussion session was loud and perhaps ‘a little rough’.
1961		Statesman Jrnl (Salem, OR) 2 Oct. 1/1: We also settled a lot lf the world’s problems at after-hour bull-fests far into the night.
1977		Rocky Mount Telegram (NC) 16 Jan. 23/1: One evening when a bunch of us were sitting around at a bullfest [etc].

a braggart, a boaster, one who lies, deceives.

1914		Greenville News (SC) 12 Oct. 8/5: [headline] Blood and Thunder Story Fires Up Boys in Greer / Bad Actor Brought to This City and Found to Be / ‘Bull’ Artist.
1923		Eugene Guard (OR) 26 Feb. 4/1: That knocker who says college graduates are too mouthy probably thinks A.B. stands for bull artist.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 71: ‘Is Hennessey the bull artist?’ said Danny O’Neill.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 20: ‘I saw no-one under seventy the whole time I was getting fitted for my ten suits.’ ‘You said six last time,’ Jack said. ‘You bull artist.’.
1955		E. Hunter Blackboard Jungle 331: Oh, he’s a big bull artist, you know. He’s always talkin’ about his big deals, but he ain’t really got no big deals.
1959		G. Slatter Gun in My Hand 210: That bull artist. Fancy wanting to marry a bastard like that.
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 82: You wouldn’t bull an old bull-artist, would you, Mr C?
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 12: I don’t see why thou all needest to have the wind up over this bull artist.
1969		A. Buzo Rooted III i: What a lot of bull-artists. Bloody scientists.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 22/2: bull artist boaster and/or charlatan; eg ‘Don’t believe a word he says. That joker’s a bull artist from way back.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(US) specious, deceitful talk; thus v. to deceive.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 26: It takes better people than you to sling the bull con into me.
1896		Guthrie Dly Leader (OK) 24 Oct. 2/1: The colored man’s eye is opened, and he cannot be bull-conned any longer by lily whites.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 259: He gave them a bull con and they turned him out. He told a plausible story and they discharged him.
1908		Blue-Grass Blade (Lexington, KY) 28 June 6/1: he told the congregational preachers [...] ‘You are continually springing bum bull-con to your congregation’.
1916		A. Stringer Door of Dread 84: Yuh gimme a pain in the neck! Whaddayuh take me for, anyway? Yuh save that bull-con for the gorilla-guy who’s butlerin’ for this hang-out!
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 399: Bull con. Clever lies. [Ibid.] 402: One who tells loud and unconvincing tales [...] bull con artist.
1935		W. Smith Bessie Cotter 212: Don’t try your bull-con on me.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1968		W.R. Burnett Cool Man 87: Little shrewd bullconning dangerous Willie, smart as a cobra and twice as deadly.

(Aus. / US) nonsense, rubbish; also used as excl.

1917		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 1 Oct. 4/1: You’ ve bunked the German nation / With bull-corn as a ration.
1965		Amarillo Globe-Times (TX) 1 Sept. 16/1: Cole slammed his fist against the desk and shouted ‘bullcorn’.
1977		Arizona Dly Star 9 Dec. Football Extra 2/2: The closest he comes to using foul language is when he says ‘bullcorn’.
1980		L.A. Times 16 Oct. II 5/3: Lindsay denounced the measure as ‘screwball,’ ‘nuts,’ and ‘bullcorn’.
1999		W. Coleman in Geronimo 2:6 June 🌐 Bull! Bull! Having money is not synonymous with having power in this country given the nature of racism. That’s bullcorn!
2002		Turtle Island Creations 🌐 Try having your pendulum out and in motion at a party or other gathering to gauge the ‘bullcorn level’ as you tune into one conversation, then another. You will find the pendulum agreeing or disagreeing with what is being said. Sort of like a ‘bullcorn detector’.
2011		Arizona Dly Star (Tucson, AZ) 7 June A009/3: He would have discovered that the hauling data was not bullcorn.

any form of specious talk, nonsense, rubbish, lies, flattery; also as a dismissive excl.

1952		Hal Ellson Golden Spike 22: Don’t give me that bull-crap.
1960		T. Southern ‘Red-dirt Marijuana’ in Southern (1973) 20: They’s a whole lotta ole bull-crap go on in the world.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 64: ‘It’s easier when you’re a good teacher—’ ‘Bullcrap.’.
1970		B. Seale Seize the Time 37: Hollering cuss words and bull crap.
1984		LaBarge & Holt Sweetwater Gunslinger 201 (1990) 160: ‘Bullcrap,’ said Sundance.
1988		D. Poyer Med 150: Bullcrap, Kelly.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 310: We have no more excuses! It’s all bullcrap.
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 213: ‘Bullcrap!’ Sims bellows. ‘That’s just bullcrap.’.
2016		Twitter 21 Nov. 🌐 Don’t start with any of this ‘Happy Holidays’ bullcrap. It’s the Christmas season. It's ‘Merry Christmas’.

(US) any form of specious talk, nonsense, rubbish, lies, flattery.

1957		(con. WWII) W. Herber Tomorrow to Live 38: It seems like a lot of bull dickey Lieutenant.
1970		Morn. Herald (Hagerstown, MD) 23 Nov. 3/3: ‘Bull dinky,’ I shouted as i slammed the receiver down.
1987		Courier-Post (Camden, NJ) 17 July 13/1: I know you think that columnists shouldn’t take vacations [...] Bull dinky. I’m outta here.
1996		Atlantic Online June 🌐 Cadets at West Point called voluble talk B.S. as early as 1900 – evidently a transparent abbreviation even then. A more recent euphemism is bull hockey, which has nothing to do with sports; newer still are bull puckey and the mysterious bull dinky.
1998		The Flick Philosopher 13 July 🌐 [A] stupid Hollywood movie that will gussy the military up and splatter it with a lot of politically correct bull dinky.
2001		www.forwardgarden.com 🌐 Unfortunately, most people are 100% full of (bull dinky).
2017		Asheville Citizen-Times (NC) 29 Jan. A2/4: I should’ve recognised the deployment story for the load of bull dinky it was.

see separate entry.

(US) rubbish, nonsense, also as excl.

1944		Statesman Jrnl (Salem, OR) 27 Aug. 13/4: Is he really glad, or is the hackneyed old custom only a lot of bull feathers?
1955		Courier-Jrnl (Louisville, KY) 17 Apr. 42/1: ‘Don’t touch little Johnny [...] you may warp his personality if you strike him.’ Bull feathers! Whnt a lot of these young whelps needed then was a spanking.
1973		Terre Haute Star (IN) 13 Jan. 17/2: You will surely hear someone who comes up with the sickeningly [sic] tripe about ‘Maude’ bring a puppet in an intricate [...] Conspiracy. Bull feathers.
1980		Arkansas Gazette 11 Mar. 1/3: We made up our mind to say hush the way Miss Ina did. But [...] it always came ‘You’re kidding?’ or ‘No jive?’ or in really incredulous situations, ‘Bullfeathers!’.
1999		C.W. Moore in Barquentine Ventures Online Journal 🌐 That was bullfeathers then and it’s bullfeathers now. If you give in to bullies and thugs, you just encourage more bullying and thuggery. I would have thought that lesson had been learned all too well 60 years ago.
2003		(ref. to 1900s) ‘Washington D.C. Vistors Guide’ at Wash. Post 🌐 [review of Bullfeathers Bar] According to bar lore, ‘bullfeathers’ was President Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite euphemism for another, better-known bull byproduct.
2015		Hartford Courant (CT) 28 Oct. C4/4: ‘I sometimes thought Diaco was full of bull feathers last year’.

(orig. Aus.) rubbish, nonsense, lies.

1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 14: bullfodder (n.) — See bullsh.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: bullfodder. See ‘Bullshit.’.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 139: Then of course there’s all that bull fodder about the capital. Sydney couldn’t stand for us to keep it.

(US) any form of specious talk, lies, flattery, insincerity, nonsense etc.

1968		Face of War [documentary film] ‘He keeps claiming he’s a farmer.’ ‘Bull hockey.’ [HDAS].
1971		Ft Lauderdale News (FL) 27 Apr. 51/4: And in the midst of all the bull hockey, there was Ron Maree, round-faced and happy.
1986		Disptach (Moline, IL) 2 Mar. E8/1: They say employment is down. I say bull hockey.
1999		theStranger.com 25 Feb.–3 Mar. 🌐 Let me tell you something, Rev. Falwell! [...] I think your theory of the Antichrist being Jewish is bull hockey!
2001		G.L. Rowles on Dads Against the Divorce Industry 🌐 Well, from the ‘feeling’ feminist perspective dads may actually be harmful to the family enterprise by appropriating precious family resources for beer and cigarettes. Bull Hockey!
2017		Courier-Jrnl (Louisville, KY) 29 June A17/4: But that doesn’t mean that we are going to help sling the governor’s bull hockey at reporters covering his administration.

see separate entries.

(US) to gossip or chatter inconsequentially.

1933

Nicholson & Robinson Sailor Beware! II ii: You boys still bull-lobbin’?

see separate entry.

(Aus./US) one who speaks insincerely.

1900		Town Talk (Alexandria, LA) 11 Sept. 4/5: A big bull merchant was heard to say this morning that farmers should hold their cotton for 12 cents.
1917		J. Lait Gus the Bus 28: Take this back to that spindle-pinned bull merchant.
1922		Referee (Sydney) 28 June 5/3: They say molasses catches more flies than vinegar. It does. They say the bird with the smiling face has more friends than the sour-visaged egg. He has. But the guy who peddles the bull has more followers than all. [...] They fall towards the bull merchant the way a tree leans towards the sun.
1938		Northern Standard (Darwin, NT) 8 Mar. 4/2: [W]hen Dr. Cook and the nurse allow a person of his class, teamed up with the old bull merchant, to bolster up their case, they must be in a pretty bad way.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 19: Thinking of that old quack, that old black bull-merchant.

(US) specious talk, nonsense, rubbish, insincerity.

1981		Bret Maverick [NBC-TV] You’re really gonna eat this bull muffin, aren’t you? [HDAS].
1985		Night Court [NBC-TV] ‘It sounded like a lot of . . .’ ‘Bull muffin!’ [HDAS].

(US) any form of specious talk, insincerity, flattery, lies.

[1944		Morn. Herald Hagerstown, MD) 2 June c-9/1: [advert] buffalo chips / bull pucky’s / They burn, So Do / Monthly Rents].
[1966		Wild Angels [movie cast list] Joint: Lou Procopio. Bull Puckey: Coby Denton. Frankenstein: Marc Cavell].
1970		Atlantic vol 226 56: ‘I think Bonanza is a bunch of bull-pucky. Now if you want authentic stuff you ought to watch Gunsmoke’.
1975		letter in Fairbanks Dly News-Miner (AK) 18 Apr. 4/5: We should not accept the bull pucky spewed out by our [...] governmental ‘leaders’.
1986		Tustin News (CA) 10 Apr. 2/1: His detractors say he is ‘only concerned with money’ to which we say ‘bull pucky’.
1996		Atlantic Online June 🌐 Cadets at West Point called voluble talk B.S. as early as 1900 – evidently a transparent abbreviation even then. A more recent euphemism is bull hockey, which has nothing to do with sports; newer still are bull puckey and the mysterious bull dinky.
2001		Net4TV 🌐 Net4TV is run by a tough, old broad. We’re funny and smart. We don’t take bull pucky from anybody. We don’t tolerate whining and sniveling.
2005		Mad mag. July 36: I didn’t want to come to Mexico in the first place. Bullpucky!
2017		Wash. Post 6 Mar. 🌐 ‘The national security justification for this whole ban — this setting up of extreme vetting — is bull-pucky,’ Maddow said.

(US) any form of specious talk, insincerity, flattery, lies.

1962		Tennesean (Nashville, TN) 25 Mar. 10F/7: ‘Let’s flush this new fangled corporate image bullroar and get back to good old belly-to-counter selling’.
1976		J. Stanley World War III (1979) 234: They were gentlemen who thought they could fight a war like some kind of traditional duel [...] that kind of bullroar.
1982		Statesman Jrnl (Salem, OR) 15 Jan. 8/2: Cheerleading the uproar and bullroar is the National Review, a conservative magazine.
1993		Quad-City Times (Davenport, IA) 5 Sept. 3T/1: Some thought [the dictionary] elitist and exclusionary. Bullroar. Kids these days need all the help they can get.
2001		Daily Howler 21 June 🌐 Why is such high-level bullroar permitted, without a peep of critical comment?
2002		K. de Coster at LewRockwell.com 🌐 Looking at the FTC’s Consumer Protection website, one can find an abundance of ‘consumer education’ bullroar [...] Apparently, we’re all a bunch of imbeciles who bequeath to Big Government our ability to obtain and manage product information.
2014		letter in Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) 15 Dec. C2/4: This bullroar is South Dakota’s very own Groundhog Day.

(US black) an aggressive, menacing manner that is no more than a bluff.

1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 129: He’s ninety per cent ‘Bull scare’.
1998		Big L ‘Ebonics’ 🎵 To clean is to buff, a bull scare is a strong bluff.

see separate entry.

see separate entries.

(US) a braggart, a liar.

1918		Marion Times-Standard (AL) 26 Dec. 3/2: The British soldiers were big bull shooters (they like to brag).
1927		(con. 1918) J. Stevens Mattock 285: Boy, bull-shooter is right. Would you believe anything that old stiff told you?
1932		J.L. Kuethe ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 330: bull-shooter—one who talks much and says little; one who talks nonsense.
1942		Anniston Star (AL) 25 July 8/7: Competitions will be held this week for the [...] biggest woman-killer and biggest ‘bull shooter’.
1951		Abilene Reporter-News (TX) 5 Aug. D1/2: Even bull shooters like AP’s Harold Ratliff listen instead of talk when Howard’s around .
1964		Asheville Citizen-Times (NC) 15 Mar. B1/8: Duke’s first half offensive show moved radio announcer Bill Curry to lay his professional reputation as a bull shooter on the line that ‘this game is all over’.
1971		Dly Notes (Canonsburg, PA) 29 Nov. 4/2: In the war days, bull shooters swapping tall tales referred to a really far-out yarn as cluttering up the premise.

(US black) to boast, to brag.

1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1002: Jelly figured that if he bullskated just right, he might confidence Sweet Back out of a thousand on a plate.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 11: I’ve been bull-skating for years with his guy.
1960		Taunton Courier 23 July 3/6: American slang [...] A niff-naws or a hair-bag. The moll-buzzers bullskate and the mayvins yentz.
1962		(con. 1950s) H. Simmons Man Walking On Eggshells 221: You ever known me to bullskate you about your playing?

(US) a braggart, a liar.

1915		Day Book (Chicago) 14 Aug. 1/2: Now if Coffin was outside the city hall, not holding down a fat political job, everybody would say this was the talk of a bullslinger.
1921		Eve. Sentinel (Carlisle, PA) 2 July 1/6: ‘Well, I’m, not a paid bull-slinger and I leave blabbering to them’.
1930		M. Bodenheim Naked on Roller Skates 224: A handsome bullslinger with loads of nerve needed more than that.
1943		W.F. Whyte Street Corner Society (1955) 50: He’s a bull-slinger.
1952		Akron Beacon Jrnl (OH) 20 Feb. 7/1: Barnett won the Phi Delts’annual trophy of a man slingin gthe bull by telling the best story at his fraternity [and] doesn’t seem to mind being kidded about being a ‘champion bullslinger’.
1962		Albany Democrat-Herald (OR) 26 Nov. 2/3: The Bullslinger award for publicity.
1978		Republic (Columbus, IN) 20 Mar. B$/2: [Jimmy] Carter was adescribed [...] as ‘a builder not a bull slinger’.
1988		H. Kahane Logic and Contemp. Rhetoric (5th edn) 15: Lots of otherwise fine friends are congenital bull slingers.
1998		Bangor (ME) Daily News 23 Apr. n.p.: Rommel Nobay fibbed a bit to get into Princeton University, claiming he is part black (nope), a National Merit Scholar (not even close) and that a family of lepers donated half their beggings to support his educational dream (hello?). When asked by prospective medical schools for grade transcripts, Princeton went a step further and filled them in on Nobay’s background as a bullslinger.
2002		Wake Forest University 🌐 You’d go and check all this out with Brian and he’d say ‘Well . . .’ and just smile a lot. Bill Salter wasn’t the only bullslinger at Wake.

(US) nonsense.

1968		Dly World (Opelousas, LA) 24 Apr. 4/6: We must cut the bullstuff. Really, we must.
1974		Jrnl & Courier (Lafayette, IN) 28 June 35/5: ‘That retirement story was a bunch of bullstuff,’ he approximately said.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 6: I might need to point out right here I’m not making any of this bullstuff up.
1994		Times (Shreveport, LA) 12 Apr. 5B/3: That just shoes to go how fast a formerly honest reporter can start spouting bullstuff.
2000		Herald & Rev. (Decatur, IL) 7 Feb. B3/1: A fight that left the crowd [...] chanting an even more apt ‘Bull-stuff, bull-stuff’.
2014		Dly Jrnl (Vineland, NJ) 12 Sept. A17/4: he has denied a motion for pre-trial intervention in this bull(stuff) case.

nonsense, rubbish.

1963		F. Kohner Affairs of Gidget 99: All this South Seas bullsugar.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 86: ‘Bull-sugar,’ I said. ‘It was always commercialized.’.

(US) a braggart, a liar.

1918		in F.O. Braynard World’s Greatest Ship (1972) I 176: A member of this ship’s company, has distinguished himself in the art of stringing the newspaper reporters, and it is believed that he should be awarded some sort of medal [...] It is suggested that there be engraved on the face of this medal, ‘Champion Bull Thrower’.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl. 9: bull. Nonsense, exaggerated lies. Hence, bull-thrower, toreador, etc.
1937		D. Fuchs Low Company 292: You told me bull stories. You’re a bull-thrower, that’s all you are.
1958		Mad mag. May–June 25: A hot-blooded woman scorns the true love of a soldier for the deft maneuvers of a famous bull-thrower.
1987		(con. 1970s) J. Pistone Donnie Brasco (2006) 39: He was a good bull-thrower [...] and could really handle himself.

(US) any form of specious talk, lies, nonsense, insincerity.

1918		Ft Wayne Sentinel (IN) 26 Dec. 7/3: I certainly sympathize with these fellows if they are foolish enough to be satisfied with this ‘bull-wash’.
1945		letter in Dly Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, NC) 29 Sept. 2/3: Hardly evere [...] does the editor permit such infamous misrepresentation and unjust bull-wash to appear.
1965		letter in Minneapolis Star (MN) 21 Jan. 6/5: I see that you jerks and frauds are at it again. I refer to that ludicrous bullwash about Minnesota’s [...] winter.
1970		Courier-Jrnl (Lousiville, KY) 14 Aug. 4/1: ‘I’m tired of this old bullwash,’ declared Helen Dixon.
1981		Philadelphia Inqurier (PA) 24 June 3-B/1: Alfred Seavey [...] said that the charges against Theodoropoulos were ‘bullwash’.
1993		Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) 16 Nov. A-12/3: The measure, she said, ‘demonstrates [...] that the Council is sytadfast in its opposition to international terrorism.’ That is bullwash.
2000		Missoulian (MT) 24 Nov. E4/1: Given the amount of bullwash Cine-Man was given for alloting four stars to ‘Legend of the Drunken Master’ [etc].
2016		letter in L.A. Times 31 Mar. A14/3: Voters in other Western states aren’t listening to the media bullwash.

1. (US campus) second-rate, inferior.

1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 265: Bull-wool – shoddy.
1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 5: Bull-wool: Cheap; shoddy; valueless. Is your bull-wool boyfriend still having you pay on your dates?

2. see bull’s wool n.² (1)

(Aus.) to show off, to act in a pretentious manner.

1969

A. Buzo Rooted IIi i: You’ve got your head screwed on the right way. You don’t bung on the bull like a lot of these blokes you see around the place.

purportedly persuasive nonsense.

1905		Montana Standard (Butte, MT) 5 Nov. 2/4: When Tim opens the air valve and starts the fan going his line of bull would make a hurricane look like a gentle zephyr.
1912		Mansfield News (OH) 7 Dec. 10?/ 3: A publicity gang which will have the job of throwing this line of bull into every state in the union.
1913–14		E. O’Neill The Web in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 53: Aw, shut up! Yuh make me sick with dat line of bull.
1923		Florala News (AL) 23 Aug. 2/4: ‘[T]hat was just a big line of bull written by a wind-bag’.
1937		letter in Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) 9 Oct. sect. 2 2/3: I notice the same old line of bull being peddled out from your city again.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act II: Aw, forget dat bughouse line of bull.
1950		Hattiesburg American (MS) 29 June 12/3: We are not just feeding you a line of bull to get you to buy stock, folks.
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 106: When I first met you, sweet papa, you tried to shoot me a line a bull.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 57: He’s got a sweet line o’ bull as ever I seen.
1981		News-Press (Ft Myers, FL) 4 Jan. 7B/1: ‘I just fed them a line of bull and told them to come get their money’.
1991		Sth Floirida Sun-Sentinel (Ft Lauderdale, FL) 11 Dec. E1/1: But even if you buy that line of bull, the use by a judge of the word ‘homo’ [...] doesn’t exactly point at impartiality, does it?
2004		Reno Gaz.-Jrnl (NV) 7 Oct. Headliners 6/4: He presents himself as a smooth-talking lounge lizard with a line of bull that exposes him as an outrageous degenerate.
2017		Chicago Trib. 26 Nov. 1-10/6: ‘I think (Foxconn and local officials) are feeding us a line of bull’.

(US) plain, unadorned, unpretentious.

2013

R. Hobbs ‘Brass’ in ThugLit Feb. [ebook] [L]eather jackets, blue jeans and no-bull cigarettes.

(W.I.) to run an illegal, unlicensed taxi service, to use one’s own car as an unlicensed taxi.

1980

cited in Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage (1996).

(US) to pressurize, to act aggressively towards.

1967

J. Breslin World of Jimmy Breslin (1968) 9: He’s yellow. Put the bull on these tough guys and they all bend in half.

to gossip, to chat; to talk deliberately deceptive nonsense.

1905		F. Hutchison Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 79: ‘[H]e shot the bull into some o’ them politicians [...] an’ they fixed it fer him to blow the harness an go out scoutin’ fer guns’.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 52: He said: ‘Certainly I will assist attorney Beerhall in peddling the bull to the jury.’.
1915		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 18 June [synd. col.] Some of the pet ideas [for songs] have as their titles: ‘Shooting the Bull Around the Bulletin Board’ [etc].
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 11 Oct. [synd. col.] [T.A. Dorgan’s] column starts of each day with a famous saying phrased in slang. Thus : As Marc Anthony would have said it today: ‘I come to plant Caesar, not to peddle the bull’.
1917		A.G. Empey Over the Top ‘Tommy’s Dict. of the Trenches’ 293: ‘Gassing.’ A term Tommy applies to ‘shooting the bull’.
1918		W.M. Barr letter www.sheilascorner.com/war/dads.shtml 🌐 The Yanks sure do like to shoot the Bull about the U.S. to these French people as soon as they can make themsleves [sic] understood. There are some mighty funny ones take place when a Yank forgets the Frenchy can’t understand.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 75: A pal of his ran in and told him Mush Tate was shootin’ the bull and heavy too.
1931		‘Toledo Slim’ in Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 229: We chewed the rag for quite a while, and I shot the bull for fair.
1932		J.L. Kuethe ‘Johns Hopkins Jargon’ in AS VII:5 336: to shoot the bull—to talk nonsense.
1942		C.R. Bond 16 Mar. in A Flying Tiger’s Diary (1984) 128: Sat around shooting the bull with the Second Squadron pilots.
1947		Kerouac letter 20 Mar. in Charters I (1995) 10 5: Hang around, spin the bull, eat, sleep, swim.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1951		J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye (1958) 17: I shot the bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 212: Out in the sunlight [...] shooting the bull with the fellows.
1963		F. Kohner Affairs of Gidget 62: He won’t ask questions, so I won’t shoot him the bull.
1969		C. Himes Blind Man with a Pistol (1971) 36: They let the fez-headed man get out of sight while they shot the bull.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 10: Prince walked beside Red, shooting the bull.
1977		Sun. Times Mag. 11 Sept. 51: We were sitting there drinking a Coke, shooting the bull.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 140: I wonder what folks like that do on vacation. Probably tear open a six-pack and shoot the bull.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 6: shoot the bull – talk for prolonged periods with friends.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 353: shoot the shit, to. To gossip; especially, to lie or to talk nonsense; also to shoot the crap (or the bull).
2000		F. Kellerman Stalker (2001) 40: Every time we start shooting the bull, talking about the day, you say things like, ‘Yeah, my father once had a case like that’.

(US) to talk nonsense, to chatter about trivialities; thus bullslinging n.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 26: It takes better people than you to sling the bull con into me.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 418: Sling the bull – to tell clever lies.
1927		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 20 Aug. 11/2: Eventually the model ‘S.M. Herald’ leader will read like this [...] Square ’n all e’s an ’umdinger when it comes to slingin’ the bull.
1939		L.A. Times 16 Feb. 14/1: It’s great to be an editor, / To sit up late at night, / To scratch your wool / And sling the bull [etc].
1943		‘Whitman College Sl.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 154/2: sling the bull, bull, bull session. Closely related terms [...] heated discussion.
1951		Oakland Trib. (CA) 7 Oct. A-33: [headline] Navy League Asserts Air Force ‘Slings the Bull’ About Matador.
1967		E. Shepard Doom Pussy 57: The new friend was in for an exhausting marathon of bull slinging. Nails could sling it with the best of them.
1977		L.A. Times 15 Feb. Letters 4/4: The erudite William F. Buckley Jor. who can sling the bull with grammatically meticulous verbal dexterity.
1989		Arizona Republic 17 Feb. F7/2: He’s ‘never known Jim Brock to tell an outright lie, but he can sling the bull with the best of them’.
1999		Courier-Post (Camden, NJ) 22 Oct. 5T/4: Brandon is willing to take any dare and knws how to sling the bull with the guys.
2003		Arizona Republic 15 Sept. B5/1: So what can you do at a Meetup? ‘Chat, chew the fat, shoot the breeze, sling the bull, babble, cackle, gab, yammer. No big whoop,’ according to the Web site.

to talk boastfully, if inaccurately, of one’s prowess.

1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 67: Damn it, he couldn’t spread the bull on thick; he didn’t know how to string people along.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 466: Now he was trying to spread out the bull and act like he had been a big shot.

(US) as an imper. phr., stop talking nonsense.

1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 44: A little man lying in one of the upper bunks had spoken suddenly [...] ‘That goddam kike Eisenstein,’ muttered someone. ‘Say, tie that bull outside,’ shouted Bill Grey good-naturedly.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 161: You juss tie that bull outside, I said to him, then I resigned.
1929		M. Bodenheim Sixty Seconds 240: Go-o o-on, tie the animal outside.
1933		J. Conroy Disinherited 134: Tie that bull outside! That’s the kind of stuff that makes the grass grow green.

(US) to chatter, to gossip; to talk nonsense.

1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 211: I don’t throw any ‘bull’ around like some guys I know.
1913		Dakota County Herald (NE) 4 Apr. 3/1: I’ll haze you for trying to throw the bull at Red Sauinders!
1943		‘Whitman College Sl.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 155/1: tossing the ox. Bragging or exaggerating the facts.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 44: I’ve been tossing the bull around.