- To blow smoke up someone’s ass means to insincerely compliment someone to get something from them or get them to do something.
- To manipulate someone with flattery; to exaggerate about something in order to make it seem better than it is. English speakers often use this idiom in the negative, i.e., “Don’t blow smoke up my ass.”
How “Blow Smoke Up Someone’s Ass” Differs from “Blow Smoke”
While often confused, blow smoke up someone’s ass and blow smoke are distinct idioms with different meanings and origins:
- Blow Smoke: Means to intentionally deceive, mislead, or create a smokescreen (a metaphor derived from magicians using smoke to hide trickery or military smokescreens).
- Blow Smoke Up Someone’s Ass: Means to aggressively flatter, manipulate with insincere compliments, or stroke someone’s ego to get what you want.
While “blow smoke up someone’s ass” likely evolved as an exaggerated, vulgar intensification of “blow smoke,” it functions specifically as an idiom for insincere flattery and sycophancy rather than general deception. It is best to view them as separate idioms.
Origin Of ‘Blow Smoke Up Someone’s Ass’
Many sources claim that this idiom came from an actual medical practice. During the late-1700s, doctors would literally blow smoke up the rectums of those thought to be dead, especially drowning victims, in the belief that this would resuscitate them. Doctors used a bellows attached to a fumigator or a syringe filled with tobacco smoke to perform these “tobacco enemas.” During the late 1700s, the Royal Humane Society actually installed resuscitation kits along the River Thames that included bellows specifically for this procedure.
While tobacco smoke has a long history in folk and tribal medicine, this practice seems to have been an offshoot of enemas or ‘glysters’ of liquid tobacco preparations. Tobacco was thought to be a stimulant, and thus a solution of tobacco, given as an enema, was used to treat all sorts of diseases, including common colds and cholera as well as to revive patients.
Presumably, using tobacco smoke instead was a last-ditch effort when a liquid enema was not possible. Later, when scientists found that nicotine was a cardiac toxin, this practice died out.
The Source of Blow Smoke Up Someone’s Ass
However, though this bit of bizarre medical history appears to be true, its association with the present idiom is dubious, as the medical practice died out long before this idiom first appeared in English, sometime during the 1940s. It is unlikely this long-ago medical practice could have inspired the idiom at so late a date. It is more likely that this is an offshoot of the idiom to blow smoke, meaning to mislead or deceive, with the reference to one’s derriere meant to add color. Although other explanations have been offered, most of them seem to be blowing smoke!
Movie and Television Citations
From Meet Joe Black (1998): In this fantasy romance, billionaire media tycoon William Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) is facing his imminent demise and has absolutely zero patience for sycophants or insincere flattery. In one of the film’s most memorable lines, he bluntly shuts down an underling by saying: “Don’t blow smoke up my ass, it will ruin my autopsy.”
From Kitchen Nightmares: Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay famously relies on the British variation of this idiom when confronting delusional restaurant owners. When an owner is used to staff members who constantly flatter them to avoid being fired, Ramsay routinely warns them before delivering a brutal critique: “I’m not here to blow smoke up your arse.” He uses the phrase to establish that his feedback is based on reality, not ego-stroking.
From Outlander (Season 4, Episode: “Wilmington”): This historical time-travel drama actually depicts the literal medical origin of the phrase on screen. When a character suffers a severe abdominal emergency in 18th-century America, a local physician attempts to use the era’s accepted (but completely useless) medical practice: a literal tobacco smoke enema, explained above. The time-traveling protagonist, Claire, who possesses 20th-century medical knowledge, has to aggressively intervene and perform an actual surgical operation rather than letting the doctor literally blow smoke up his ass to cure him.
Sentence Examples For Blow Smoke Up Someone’s Ass
“Don’t listen to the salesmen around here. They’ll blow smoke up your ass for an hour to try to get you to buy a car.”
“Don’t blow smoke up my ass,” said Vance. “I know you just want me to let you borrow my car.”
Similar and Related Phrases
- Kiss Ass or Kiss Butt: To curry favor by using flattery or affecting a fawning, servile attitude, being overly agreeable, etc.
- Curry Favor: To try to gain an advantage or to seek someone’s approval flattery and sycophantic and servile behavior.
- Suck Up (to someone): Same as to kiss ass or to brown-nose; to curry favor or try to win approval by acting obsequiously toward an important person.