no love lost

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English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

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Noun[edit]

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, Jack London, Adventure:
      “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.

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