at daggers drawn

The new duke of Orléans, son of the Regent, was a callow and shallow youth and worse still—for the house of Condé, collateral with the Bourbons, was perennially at daggers drawn with the rival Orléans dynasty—had just married and already made his wife pregnant.

2002, Colin Jones, “Negotiating Stormy Weather: The Regency and the Advent of Fleury (1715–26)”, in The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon 1715–99, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 80

But [David] Cameron nevertheless feels confident, because he is pretty sure that he has got Labour where he wants it, still off the centre ground on economic credibility and increasingly at daggers drawn with the Liberal Democrats, not least over the pivotal electoral event of this parliament, the AV referendum.

2011 April 28, Martin Kettle, “Vote yes to AV if you want to see Tories feel the fear again”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 08 Dec 2022