shoot the bull
"shoot-the-bull" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“shoot the bull” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To chinwag; to talk idly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-shoot-the-bull · shoot the bull · English
shoot the bull · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 14 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shoot the bull |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “shoot the bull” in English
Rare enough to double-check
shoot the bull is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To chinwag; to talk idly.".
shoot the bull doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is shoot the bull, spelled S-H-O-O-T- -T-H-E- -B-U-L-L.
Definition
- 1To chinwag; to talk idly.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how shoot the bull appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
1976-1977, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure 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.
Shooting the bull with Benny and Elvira while Nelson skitters around out there in the lake of rooftops, selling used cars like hotcakes.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.