Word.ws English Dictionary

shot the bull

shot the bull is the simple past and past participle 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 shot the bull

What is shot the bull the simple past and past participle of?
Shot the bull is the simple past and past participle of shoot the bull.

Words near shot the bull in the dictionary

  1. shot spots
  2. shot stopper
  3. shot stoppers
  4. shot the boots
  5. shot the breeze
  6. shot the bull
  7. shot the cat
  8. shot the five
  9. shot the gold
  10. shot the lens
  11. shot the lights out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shot 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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