chew the fat

To discuss, chat, converse, etc., especially at length and in a leisurely, friendly manner. My sister and I haven't seen each other in nearly five years, so we stayed up half the night chewing the fat. Come into my office and chew the fat with me a little bit, David. I want to know how things are going with you.

Fig. to chat or gossip. Sit yourself down and let's chew the fat for a while. We were just chewing the rag. Nothing important.

Also, chew the rag. Chat in a friendly, leisurely way, as in Let's get together for coffee and chew the fat, or John and Dave spend hours just chewing the rag. Before the 1880s in Britain, chew the fat meant "to grumble or complain," and chew the rag also has been used in this way. Today both expressions are largely synonyms for a friendly talk or gossip session. Why this idiom uses fat and rag is not known, but some speculate that fat refers to juicy items of gossip and rag to ladies' sewing circles and the cloth they worked on while chatting.

If you chew the fat with someone, you talk with them in an informal and friendly way. We'd been lounging around, chewing the fat for a couple of hours. Her chat show gave her the chance to chew the fat with the likes of Tony Curtis and Diana Ross. Note: This may refer to sailors in the past talking to each other while they chewed the fat in the dried pork which they were given to eat.

To converse, or to chatter in informal fashion. In Great Britain chewing the rag originally (late nineteenth century) was a colloquial term for complaining or grumbling, although one source holds it was an army term for persisting in an argument. Another source reports that the rag in question was a piece of cloth used when soldiers ran out of tobacco. Chewing the fat, more common in America, may have meant chewing on salt pork or fatback when supplies were low. Today both are colloquial clichés that simply mean talking in a relaxed manner.