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View synonyms for fighting words
fighting words
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Idioms and Phrases
A statement bound to start a quarrel or fight. It is often expressed as them's fighting words , as in You say your father's smarter than mine? Them's fighting words . The ungrammatical use of them's for “those are” emphasizes the folksy tone of this colloquialism, first recorded in Ring Lardner's Gullible's Travels (1917).Advertisement
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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