split the breeze

Verb

split the breeze (third-person singular simple present splits the breeze, present participle splitting the breeze, simple past and past participle split the breeze)

1. (US, idiomatic) To take up space, causing any breeze to move on either side.
   • Nary bee 'at split the breeze / Ever jabbed a sting in Old 'Bee' Fessler—jes' in fun, / Er in airnest—nary one!1885, James Whitcomb Riley, “Fessler's Bees”, in Gleanings in Bee Culture, volume 13, page 638
   • That any full-grown, man-shouldered male human being could be so poor in dignity as to appear in public and the light of day so trigged up, passed all bounds of credulity. But there he was, his little old fool cap pushed back like a three-year-old boy, his blunderbuss trousers flapping in the wind...1923, George Washington Ogden, “Chapter 2”, in The Baron of Diamond Tail
2. (US, idiomatic) To move very quickly; to speed.
   • I falls backward into the open door, Magpie ducks flat on the ground and crawls on his belly around the corner, and Dirty splits the breeze toward town behind his bronc, which seems to have contracted the getaway fever, too.1917, W.C. Tuttle, “The Hen-Punchers of Piperock”, in Adventure, volume 14, page 64
   • "Hop in, then" the other said, brightening, "while I look along the track for a caddy of keen-spitting they was to fling off the train for me. Then we'll split the breeze."1921, Munsey's Magazine - Volume 74, page 615
3. (US, idiomatic) To carry; to pierce the air.
   • Enterprise was acclaimed with a blast of whistles that split the breeze.1951, Allison Danzig, Peter Brandwein, The Greatest Sport Stories from the New York Times
   • Sometimes the scream of a cougar split the breeze.1959, Guy Loraine Bond, A Call to Adventure