I was looking up "gadfly" and the MW 1828 dictionary said, " An insect of the genus Oestrus, which stings cattle, and deposits its eggs in their skin; called also the breeze."
That isn't where "shoot the breeze" came, is it? I assume not, but I couldn't find anything about how that phrase came to be used. Does anyone know?
Interesting. According to Dictionary.com (scroll down almost to the bottom of the page) it was first recorded in 1919.
quote:shoot the breeze
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."
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
[OE. briosa, breosa masc.: conjecturally referred by some to BRIMSE; but there appears to be no ground for supposing any connexion.]
1. A gadfly: a name given to various dipterous insects, esp. of the genera AEstrus (BOT-FLY) and Tabanus, which annoy horses and cattle. arch. or dial. b. sea-breeze: a parasite infesting some fish (cf. Gr. ). Obs. Also fig.
brimse
Obs. exc. dial. [First found in 16th c.: identical with ON. brims (Fritzner); also Ger. bremse:OHG. primisa (Graff), brimissa (Kluge), perh. f. brem- to roar, in sense of ‘boom, buzz loudly’. In Eng. prob. from Norse, though early evidence is wanting.]
A gadfly; = BREEZE n.1
breeze, v.1 Obs. rare. [f. BREEZE n.1]
intr. To buzz as a breeze or gadfly.
breeze, n.2
[In 16th c. brize, brieze, app. ad. OSp. (and Pg.) briza (mod.Sp. brisa) ‘north-east wind’ (though, according to Cotgrave, brize also occurs in Fr. (in Rabelais a 1550) = bize, bise ‘north wind’). Cf. also It. brezza ‘cold wind bringing mist or frost’ (Florio), Milanese brisa ‘cool wind from the north’ (Diez). Cotgrave's brize = bize, supports the suggestion of Diez, that the word was orig. a variant of bisa, bise ‘north east wind’. On the Atlantic sea-board of the West Indies and Spanish Main, briza acquired the transferred senses of ‘north-east trade-wind’, and ‘fresh wind from the sea’, in which it was adopted by the English navigators of the 16th c. The further extension to ‘gentle fresh wind’ generally, is English; cf. the actual F. brise (in the Dict. of the Academy only since 1762).]
1. orig. A north or north-east wind; spec. applied within the tropics to the NE. trade-wind.
Breeze \Breeze\, Breeze fly \Breeze" fly`\, n. [OE. brese, AS. bri['o]sa; perh. akin to OHG. brimissa, G. breme, bremse, D. brems, which are akin to G. brummen to growl, buzz, grumble, L. fremere to murmur; cf. G. brausen, Sw. brusa, Dan. bruse, to roar, rush.] (Zo["o]l.) A fly of various species, of the family Tabanid[ae], noted for buzzing about animals, and tormenting them by sucking their blood; -- called also horsefly, and gadfly. They are among the largest of two-winged or dipterous insects. The name is also given to different species of botflies. [Written also breese and brize.]
