Meanings
- idiomaticuncountableMutual dislike or animosity.
There was no love lost between the two opponents.
5 more examples
I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us, that might easily be.
1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XXXVIII, in Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLCBy Crums, they might get the salts and oxalic acid mixed up if they came to treat me, for there’s no love lost between us.
1895, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLCIn the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot that there had never been much love lost between her and Josie.
1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter XXXIV, in Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC“My boys are practically all bushmen, while these chaps are salt-water men, and there’s no love lost between them. You watch the fun.”
1911 March, Jack London, Adventure, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLCHe hadn't seen his brother for years, and I guess there was no love lost.
1922, Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Breaking Point
Translations
Icelandic vera fátt með, það er ekki ástinni fyrir að fara
- vera fátt meðdislike
- það er ekki ástinni fyrir að faradislike
Cite this entry
no love lost. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20love%20lost
“no love lost.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20love%20lost. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “no love lost,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20love%20lost.
Source: no love lost on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.