take no prisoners
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Show no mercy or leniency to opponents
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Không tỏ lòng thương xót hoặc khoan dung với đối thủ
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: capture and hold enemy soldiers
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
John Power is prepared to run through a wall; Willie O'Connor is as hard as nails and Liam Simpson takes no prisoners.
The man is on a mission and he intends to take no prisoners.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “take no prisoners” mean?
Show no mercy or leniency to opponents Literally: capture and hold enemy soldiers
Is “take no prisoners” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.