at swords' points
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at swords' points
Combative, quarrelsome, or belligerent. I'm not surprised that those two are arguing already—they're always at swords' points.
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at sword's point
Also, at swords' points. Antagonistic, hostile, as in Father and son were at swords' points. Dating from the days when swords were used to settle quarrels, the idiom today generally signifies only a bitter quarrel.
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at swords' points
Ready for a fight.
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at swords' points
Openly hostile. This term obviously refers to swordfighting, long a thing of the past, but it has not died out. Mary McCarthy used it in her novel, The Group (1963): “Mrs. Hartshorn and her dead husband had had a running battle over Wilson and the League, and now Priss and Sloan were at swords’ points over Roosevelt and socialized medicine.” A synonymous expression is at daggers drawn, first recorded in 1668 but used figuratively only from the 1800s. Robert B. Brough, Marston Lynch, His Life and Times (1870) had it: “Was Marston still at daggers drawn with his rich uncle?”
See also: point