Word.ws English Dictionary

look daggers

Syllables: look dag·gersUK/ˌlʊk ˈdæɡəz//ˌlʊk ˈdæɡɚz/

look daggers verb: often followed by at: to stare in a disapproving, severe, or threatening manner, especially without speaking.

Verb

look daggers (third-person singular simple present looks daggers, present participle looking daggers, simple past and past participle looked daggers)

  1. (intransitive) Often followed by at: to stare in a disapproving, severe, or threatening manner, especially without speaking.
    • Before him set the grim baron, with a face worthy of the father of such a daughter, and looking daggers and rat's bane.1835, [Washington Irving], “Abbotsford”, in Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey (The Crayon Miscellany; no. 2), Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, [Isaac] Lea, & Blanchard, →OCLC, pages 40–41
    • Both employers looked daggers at Kit, for the insult rankled; […]1912 October, Jack London, “The Meat”, in Smoke Bellew, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co, →OCLC, page 43

Synonyms of look daggers

Forms of look daggers

third-person singular presentlooks daggers
present participlelooking daggers
past participlelooked daggers
pastlooked daggers

Origin of look daggers

An allusion to a look being so fierce as to be able to injure the person looked at like a dagger.

Questions about look daggers

What does look daggers mean?
Look daggers means often followed by at: to stare in a disapproving, severe, or threatening manner, especially without speaking.
What part of speech is look daggers?
Look daggers is a verb.
How do you pronounce look daggers?
Look daggers is pronounced /ˌlʊk ˈdæɡəz/ (UK).
What is the past tense of look daggers?
The past tense of look daggers is looked daggers.

Words near look daggers in the dictionary

  1. look beyond the end of one's nose
  2. look beyond the tip of one's nose
  3. look book
  4. look books
  5. look both ways
  6. look daggers
  7. look dev
  8. look development
  9. look down
  10. look down on
  11. look down one's nose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: look daggers (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-look daggers.oga.

Cite this entry: “look daggers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/look_daggers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.