no love lost

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no love lost (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) Mutual dislike or animosity.

   There was no love lost between the two opponents.

   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XXXVIII, in Great Expectations […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC:

     I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us, that might easily be.

   • 1895, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:

     By Crums, they might get the salts and oxalic acid mixed up if they came to treat me, for there’s no love lost between us.

   • 1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter XXXIV, in Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, published August 1909 (11th printing), →OCLC:

     In the joy of seeing a familiar face Anne forgot that there had never been much love lost between her and Josie.

   • 1911 March, Jack London, Adventure, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:

     “My boys are practically all bushmen, while these chaps are salt-water men, and there’s no love lost between them. You watch the fun.”

   • 1922, Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Breaking Point‎^[1]:

     He hadn't seen his brother for years, and I guess there was no love lost.

   • 1957, Ian Fleming, chapter 22, in From Russia With Love:

     Soon they would be out of Turkey. But would Greece be any easier? No love lost between Greece and England.