blow out one's bags

English

Verb

blow out one's bags (third-person singular simple present blows out one's bags, present participle blowing out one's bags, simple past blew out one's bags, past participle blown out one's bags)

1. (slang) To talk in a boastful or overweening manner.
   • 1942, Western Australia. Parliament, Parliamentary Debates, page 273:

     After that Premiers came back from the Eastern States and blew out their bags, declaring that they had secured certain advantages, that they had obtained so many more million pounds to disburse.

   • 1966, Gordon Greenwood, Modern India, page 312:

     My experience has been that the people who blow out their bags and who say I have power are the ones who haven't enough else to do.