split the breeze

present singular third person splits the breeze · participle present splitting the breeze

1. USidiomaticTo 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

   4 more examples

   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 about his ankles, holding an argument with as much assurance as if he stood equal with any man that ever split the breeze.

   1923, George Washington Ogden, “Chapter 2”, in The Baron of Diamond Tail

   Perhaps his name appears in the article, or under the photograph; his chest expands three inches, he gains in stature, his chin splits the breeze; he and his gang have done something — right here it is in the paper, our paper, see ?

   1938, Proceedings of All Ohio Safety Congress - Volume 9, page 305

   Anything that splits the breeze, from your finger to a tree or a building, will cause an invisible vortex street to spread behind it.

   1994, Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, page 160

   The driver steered the hulking bus up and over the hills and past the rippling grasses, splitting the breeze like a bow divides the water.

   2020, Cameron Dick, Head of the Hyena

2. USidiomaticTo move very quickly; to speed.

   Can't do it on the whale-boat. Must use the bidarka. I saw the way it splits the breeze.

   1952, Tikhon Semushkin, Alitet Goes to the Hills, page 496

   4 more examples

   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

   They can run at a sixty-mile-an-hour speed and were really splitting the breeze as they crossed the little valley in front of Pa.

   1987, Lynn H. Scott, The Covered Wagon & Other Adventures, page 21

   Well, Columbia's got lots of money, I don't mind taking it from them...I got $400 cash in advance and five percent royalties for the records...I just bought a new Plymouth and it really splits the breeze.

   2023, Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life

3. USidiomaticTo carry; to pierce the air.

   Sometimes the scream of a cougar split the breeze.

   1959, Guy Loraine Bond, A Call to Adventure

   1 more example

   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