"Shooting the breeze" or "shooting" or "throwing the bull" (bull being short for bull dung) means to kill time by engaging in idle chitchat. This term is usually applied between men.
The idioms (and their tendency to be used with men) showed up in the early 20th century and come from the imagery of the Old West. Cowboys and other folk with nothing to do would find ways to kill time by, say, shooting into the air at nothing in particular (shooting the breeze) or playing around with bull droppings (throwing the bull).
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