split the breeze

English

Verb

split the breeze (third-person singular simple present splits the breeze, present participle splitting the breeze, simple past and past participle split the breeze)

1. (US, idiomatic) To take up space, causing any breeze to move on either side.
   • 1885, James Whitcomb Riley, “Fessler's Bees”, in Gleanings in Bee Culture, volume 13, page 638:

     Nary bee 'at split the breeze / Ever jabbed a sting in Old 'Bee' Fessler—jes' in fun, / Er in airnest—nary one!

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

     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.

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

     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 ?

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

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

   • 2020, Cameron Dick, Head of the Hyena:

     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.

2. (US, idiomatic) To move very quickly; to speed.
   • 1917, W.C. Tuttle, “The Hen-Punchers of Piperock”, in Adventure, volume 14, page 64:

     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.

   • 1921, Munsey's Magazine - Volume 74, page 615:

     "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."

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

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

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

     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.

   • 2023, Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life:

     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.

3. (US, idiomatic, of sound) To carry; to pierce the air.
   • 1951, Allison Danzig, Peter Brandwein, The Greatest Sport Stories from the New York Times:

     Enterprise was acclaimed with a blast of whistles that split the breeze.

   • 1959, Guy Loraine Bond, A Call to Adventure:

     Sometimes the scream of a cougar split the breeze.