sell wolf tickets

Etymology
From /, from, from. Woof ticket/wolf ticket is attested since the 1960s.

Verb

 * 1)  To make threats or boasts, especially if empty and/or if made to intimidate someone.
 * 2) * 1974, Vernon E. Smith, The Jones Men, page 165, quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang (2008):
 * It's plenty people selling wolf tickets, you know.

Usage notes

 * Various words may be inserted into the expression; for example, in the Donald Hall quotation above, someone is said to have "sold a reporter a handful of wolf tickets".