at swords’ points

Openly hostile. This term obviously refers to sword- fighting, 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 it 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?