at daggers drawn

Probably a reference to people preparing to fight by drawing their daggers from their sheaths. Compare French à couteaux tirés (literally “at daggers drawn”).

• "And upon this point, vvere they at Daggers Dravvn vvith the Emperour."
• "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."
• "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."

• at daggers' points

• at daggers' drawing
• to daggers' drawing
• at each other's throats
• at loggerheads
• the knives are out