at each other's throats
23
7.0
- idiom
- Informal
:
pelearse
- You two have spent this entire vacation at each other's throats.
They're saying, you know, we're at each other's throats, we hate each other.
- They're saying, you know, we're at each other's throats, we hate each other.
- The European Union has helped reconcile countries which were once at each other's throats for decades.
- Meanwhile, Chicago's gangs have been increasingly at each other's throats.
- Because one of the other things that I said was it may seem like we've spent so many years at each other's throats, but we still have so much time.
- I think that they react to one another in these oblique ways rather than always being at each other's throats in in direct confrontations.
- Why should I go and fight because the Austrians and the Germans and the Serbians are at each other's throats.
- Race wars, gender wars, income wars, religious wars, age wars, every war you can imagine, we have people at each other's throats.
- The count of Armagnac is these two factions, Burgundians and Armeniacs, are permanently at each other's throats.
Examples
-
They're always at each other's throats.
-
Is there no progress to be made, or must we always be at each other's throats?
Blog text (19) -
You guys are still at each other's throats.
-
Everybody was at each other's throats.
-
Truth is, we were at each other's throats most of the time.
-
But when he finally came, they quickly went from firm friends to being at each other's throats.
-
What do you think it would do to the patients to see us at each other's throats?
-
The European Union has helped reconcile countries which were once at each other's throats for decades.
-
All three of us were at each other's throats constantly from pure exhaustion.
Blog text (31) -
During the meeting, the two managers were at each other's throats over the budget cuts.
Synonyms
60
4.8
Not agreeing with someone or something
14
6.8
In direct competition or argument with someone
4
7.3
Not agreeing with someone and often angry about it
In open, serious conflict with someone
Antonyms
How Hostile
∞
1.0
- Informal
23
7.0
35
2.6
607
1.1
36
4.1
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'each other' (mutual) and 'throats' (a body part associated with attack) give a fairly direct image of mutual attack, so a learner who knows the words can infer strong conflict. However, the phrase is a metaphorical idiom meaning angry fighting or arguing rather than literal throat-attacking, so the exact non-literal sense is not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
At each other's throats may come from the image of people so angry they grab or attack each other's throats. So the phrase now means 'arguing or fighting angrily'.