to batting the breeze
- idiom
- Informal
:
charlar
- We sat on the porch batting the breeze long into the evening.
Examples
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Whenever they meet up, they end up batting the breeze about nothing in particular.
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She enjoys batting the breeze with her neighbors on weekend mornings.
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They were batting the breeze at the café.
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I caught them batting the breeze during lunch yesterday.
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She enjoys batting the breeze with her neighbors on weekend mornings.
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We sat on the porch batting the breeze long into the evening.
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Whenever they meet up, they end up batting the breeze about nothing in particular.
Synonyms
269
1.0
To talk in a friendly, informal way about small everyday things
86
2.7
To talk quickly and without stopping about unimportant things
9
6.8
To chat in a relaxed informal way about unimportant things
7
3.0
To talk in a friendly, light way about unimportant things
5
4.1
To talk in a friendly, light way about unimportant things
3
7.9
Talk in a friendly, relaxed way for a long time
2
8.1
To chat in a relaxed way about everyday things
To talk in a relaxed, friendly way
Talking in a friendly, relaxed way with other people
To talk in a lively, informal way about things like music
To chat with others about small, unimportant things
Talk in a friendly, relaxed way
Antonyms
How Casual
Surface Forms
Morphology
batting + the + breeze
The meaning 'engaging in casual or aimless conversation' cannot be derived from the literal parts 'batting' (hitting) and 'breeze' (a light wind or, as given here, an easy thing). This is an idiomatic variant of 'shoot the breeze' with no transparent compositional link, so learners who know the individual words would not predict the conversational meaning.
Etymology
Batting the breeze may come from the image of someone lightly hitting the air with a hand or hat — literally batting the breeze while doing nothing important. That's why it means 'casual talk'.