Englisharmed to the teeth
Meaning: Well-equipped with weapons.
Example: “The security guards at the bank were armed to the teeth.”
Origin: Two readings compete, and both are old. One takes it literally as a matter of quantity: a fighter carrying as many weapons as a body can hold — hands full, belt full — has nowhere left but the mouth, and the image of a blade gripped in the teeth while climbing or boarding is a stock one, particularly in piracy. The other reads "to the teeth" as a way of saying "completely, to the very top," describing a man in full plate armor covered from foot to head, with the teeth as the last thing reachable. The phrase exists in English from the medieval period, and it was given a second life in the 1800s by the free-trade campaigner Richard Cobden, who used it in an 1849 speech attacking military spending — after which it settled into the political vocabulary it still occupies.
More English idioms
- blue-blood A person (or animal) that is an aristocrat or from a noble family.
- a bone of contention A topic of dispute.
- a bone to pick A dispute.
- burn one's bridges To take a course of action that makes it impossible to go back.
- by word of mouth The informal, verbal passing of information from one person to another.
- catch someone's eye To attract someone's visual attention.
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