look daggers at
look daggers at (one)
To glare at someone very angrily, spitefully, or disdainfully. I noticed the bride looking daggers at the best man as he started making vulgar jokes during his speech.
See also: dagger, look
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
look daggers at someone
Fig. to give someone a dirty look. Tom must have been mad at Ann from the way he was looking daggers at her. Don't you dare look daggers at me! Don't even look cross-eyed at me!
See also: dagger, look
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
look daggers at
glare angrily or venomously at.The expression speak daggers is also found and is used by Shakespeare's Hamlet in the scene in which he reproaches his mother.
See also: dagger, look
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
look daggers at
To glare at angrily or hatefully.
See also: dagger, look
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
look daggers at, to
To glare at someone. The term first appeared in the Greek playwright Aristophanes’s The Birds (ca. 414 b.c.) and was alluded to several times by Shakespeare. “There’s daggers in men’s smiles,” he wrote (Macbeth, 2:3). The image aptly conveys the fierceness of such a glance and appealed to numerous other writers, including Thoreau. A synonymous cliché is if looks could kill, which has been around since the early 1900s. Frank Harris used it in My Life and Loves (1922): “When they let me up I looked at Jones, and if looks could kill, he would have had short shrift.”
See also: dagger, look
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- look daggers
- look daggers at (one)
- look daggers at somebody
- look daggers at someone
- shoot daggers at (one)
- spit in (one's) eye
- spit in someone's eye
- spit in the eye of
- spit in the eye of (someone)
- drawn