at loggerheads

1. Engaged in a head-on dispute: “Labor and management are at loggerheads in this affair, and it may be some time before they can negotiate a settlement.”

Idioms and Phrases

Engaged in a quarrel or dispute, as in The two families were always at loggerheads, making it difficult to celebrate holidays together. This term may have come from some earlier meaning of loggerhead, referring either to a blockhead or stupid person, or to a long-handled iron poker with a bulb-shaped end that was heated in the fire and used to melt pitch. If it was the latter, it may have been alluded to as a weapon. [Late 1600s] For a synonym, see at odds.

Example Sentences

Pretoria and Washington have been at loggerheads for months over US allegations that the post-apartheid government persecutes the minority white population, including widely rejected claims of a "white genocide".

Read more on Barron's

The government had already been at loggerheads with Junts in other parliamentary votes and negotiated its support on a case-by-case basis.

Read more on Barron's

Hungary's nationalist leader Orban has been at loggerheads with Brussels since his return to power in 2010 over what the EU says is his undermining of democratic institutions and divisive foreign policy stance.

Read more on Barron's

The mercurial Spaniard had become the first European to win the Masters in 1980, adding to his 1979 Open triumph, but was at loggerheads with the tour over appearance fees.

Read more on BBC

Beijing and Washington have been at loggerheads on a range of issues as well as tariffs, including US demands that China's ByteDance sell TikTok and that China speed up its export of critical minerals.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• aggressive 
• antagonistic 
• bellicose 
• combative 
• contentious 
• hostile 
• ornery 
• quarrelsome