That’s a bouncer. A gross exaggeration, a braggart’s lie. (Dutch, bonz, verb bonzen, to bounce or thump. A bouncing lie is a thumping lie, and a bouncer is a thumper.)
“He speaks plain cannon, fire, and smoke, and bounce.”—Shakespeare: King John, ii. 2.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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