pass the bottle of smoke

present singular third person passes the bottle of smoke · participle present passing the bottle of smoke · participle past passed the bottle of smoke · past passed the bottle of smoke

1. idiomaticrareTo acquiesce in some falsehood; to make pretence.

   The special streak of the young talent that fascinates me more is the strong impulse to stand against standardized cunning ploy of passing the bottle of smoke in the name of cinema.

   2000, Pradip Biswas, Sandip Ray: Take One, page 8

   1 more example

   To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence as to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and giving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for it, and living in it, and all the rest of it—in short, to pass the bottle of smoke, according to rule.

   1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC