informal

if the gloves are off in an argument or competition, the people involved have started to argue or compete in a more determined or unpleasant way.

She gave a second interview later that year but this time the gloves were off. Her ex-boss, she said, was 'a tyrant and a fraud'.

• be damned if you do and damned if you don't
• be dead and buried
• be dead from the neck up
• be dead from the waist down
• be dead in the water
• be dead meat
• be dead on feet
• be dead on your feet
• be dead to the world
• be department
• be done in
• be done like a dinner
• be done like a dog's dinner
• be done to a turn
• be done to death
• be down in the dumps
• be down in the mouth
• be down on like a ton of bricks
• be down on luck
• be down on someone like a ton of bricks
• be down on uppers
• be down on your luck
• be down on your uppers
• be dressed to kill
• be dressed up to the nines