Word.ws English Dictionary

shoots the bull

shoots the bull is the third-person singular simple present indicative of shoot the bull.

Meaning of shoot the bull

Verb

shoot the bull (third-person singular simple present shoots the bull, present participle shooting the bull, simple past and past participle shot the bull)

  1. (idiomatic) To chinwag; to talk idly.
    • I didn't get what this group therapy was all about, it seemed to me it was just a bunch of people shooting the bull.1976-1977, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure

Questions about shoots the bull

What is shoots the bull the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Shoots the bull is the third-person singular simple present indicative of shoot the bull.

Words near shoots the bull in the dictionary

  1. shoots oneself in the foot
  2. shoots out
  3. shoots someone straight
  4. shoots the boots
  5. shoots the breeze
  6. shoots the bull
  7. shoots the cat
  8. shoots the five
  9. shoots the gold
  10. shoots the lens
  11. shoots the lights out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shoots the bull (page history and authors); shoot the bull (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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