blow smoke

English

Alternative forms

• blow smoke up someone's ass

Etymology

By shortening of the full expression blow smoke up someone's ass, deemed less vulgar.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

blow smoke (third-person singular simple present blows smoke, present participle blowing smoke, simple past blew smoke, past participle blown smoke)

1. (idiomatic) To speak with a lack of credibility, sense, purpose, or truth; to speak nonsense.

   Are these "statistics" they cite verifiable, or are they just blowing smoke, trying to scare people?

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:nonsense
• See Thesaurus:deceive

Translations

idiomatic

• Catalan: marejar la perdiu
• Finnish: höpöttää (fi), jaaritella (fi), jauhaa (fi), puhua joutavia
• French: parler pour ne rien dire (fr)
• Greek: ρίχνω στάχτη στα μάτια (ríchno stáchti sta mátia)
• Hindi: आँख में धूल झोंकना (to deceive, literally “shove dust/smoke in eyes”), चूना लगाना (cūnā lagānā, literally “apply lime (material)”)
• Russian: гнать пургу́ (ru) (gnatʹ purgú, literally “drive the blizzard”), поро́ть чепуху́ (porótʹ čepuxú, literally “flog the nonsense”)

See also

• smoke and mirrors
• smoke blower
• Tobacco smoke enema