lock horns
Become embroiled in conflict, as in At the town meeting Kate and Steve locked horns over increasing the property tax. This expression alludes to how stags and bulls use their horns to fight one another. [First half of 1800s]
Words Nearby lock horns
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
How to use lock horns in a sentence
So when the experts lock horns, jurors toss all of their testimony out the window.
Judge and attorneys would frequently lock horns; and sometimes their disputes ended violently.
Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913 | Harris NewmarkBut she gives out a kind of a smile, and her hand and mine lock horns, and I sets down by the bed—mud and spurs and chaps and all.
Heart of the West | O. HenrySome day, popsy-wops, that soldier will drop in at our ranch and lock horns with you on the Japanese question.
The Pride of Palomar | Peter B. KyneIndications multiplied that before long the two great armies would lock horns, and prove which was the best man of the two.
Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 | Charles Augustus Fuller
It wouldn't do to lock horns with this self-satisfied despot; at any rate, not now.
The Copper-Clad World | Harl Vincent
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