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The idiom has haunted me for some time, especially as explanations of the idiom didn't convince me at all.
OCE has an explanation with horses being fettered with a log. Totally incomprehensible to me.
Others explain the saying with 'log' or an old 'logger' (block of wood). Though the word 'logger' seems to be an element of 'loggerheads' it would be hard to find a semantic line from 'block of wood' to constant quarrelling.
Others say a 'loggerhead' is a silly stupid person and they mean to say - two persons constantly quarrelling are simply stupid persons. Then I might ask what has "at" to do in the saying.
I have another idea which I presented in another forum some time ago and I just put it here:
My idea (just a hypothesis) is that - logger- was "lock their heads" - it must be an image taken from the world of hunters who observe stags fighting in their "hot time" - sorry, I just had to look up the proper word - in their rutting season.
Whoever has seen fighting stags with their mighty antlers, not stopping running into each other with fury - will remember this scene and have it as an impressive picture in his mind.
Sometimes the antlers "lock" - the antlers of the two animals get tangled and they can't get clear any more They are forced to fight till some parts of the antlers break and one of the animals throws in the towel.
So I think "They are constantly at loggerheads about who is to pay the damage"
can be explained as "They are constantly at quarrelling and fighting and locking their heads like two stags"
And "at + locking their heads" was mixed together and shortened to "at loggerheads".
---
On the other forum I could convince nobody that the saying may have its origin from the image of fighting stags. I met with a wall of incomprehension. But I would like to hear views of speakers here.
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Good question roger, I've heard the phrase but only while reading; I've never used the phrase myself nor have I heard it use in conversation.
I found this explanation interesting and I don't think I would have ever thought that this was the origin of the phrase.
At loggerheads
Meaning
In dispute with.
Origin
'At loggerheads' is of UK origin. The singular 'loggerhead' occurs as a name in several contexts - as a species of turtle, a bird and as a place name. Originally, a loggerhead was none of these but was first used with the meaning of 'a stupid person - a blockhead'. Shakespeare used it that way in Love's Labours Lost, 1588:
"Ah you whoreson logger-head, you were borne to doe me shame."
A 'logger-head' was literally a 'block-head'. A logger was a thick block of timber which was fastened to a horse's leg to prevent it from running away. In the 17th century, a loggerhead was also recorded as 'an iron instrument with a long handle used for melting pitch and for heating liquids'. It is likely that the use of these tools as weapons was what was being referred to when rivals were first said to be 'at loggerheads'.
The first known use of the phrase in print is in Francis Kirkman's, The English Rogue, 1680:
"They frequently quarrell'd about their Sicilian wenches, and indeed... they seem... to be worth the going to Logger-heads for."
The next year saw the printing of The Arraignment, Trial, and Condemnation of Stephen Colledge. In that text, the author makes a clear link between loggerheads and fighting:
So we went to loggerheads together, I think that was the word, or Fisty-cuffs.
Incidentally, 'fisticuffs' is another two-word term from around the same date that was later amalgamated into a single word. A cuff was a blow with the open hand. A fisty cuff was a cuff using the fist, i.e. a punch.
Following the departure of the clown William Kemp from The Lord Chamberlain's Men, the troupe of actors that William Shakespeare worked with for most of his writing and acting career, his place was taken by Robert Armin. In 1605, the diminutive clown Armin, a.k.a. 'Snuff, the Clown of the Globe', had a stab at writing and came up with Foole upon Foole. In this piece he makes the first recorded reference to 'fisty cuffs':
"The foole... falls at fisty cuffes with him."
Loggerheads is also the name of three small towns in the UK - in Staffordshire, in Lancashire and in Mold, North Wales. As is 'de rigueur' when a town might have some reason to claim to be associated with some phrase or another, each town's residents claim that 'at loggerheads' originated in their home-town. Alas, despite the early citations referring to 'going to' loggerheads, this isn't the case. The towns were named after the term, not the other way about. Nevertheless, the use of 'loggerheads' as a place name has been a boon to stand-up comedians of the 'take my wife...' fraternity. They have been trotting out this classic for years:
'I'm going on holiday - a fortnight at Loggerheads with the wife'.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. -Oscar Wilde
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Rogermue, since this, as you know, is an idiom, it got to be as it is. And hence I do not wish to be at loggerheads with pundits. However, I am equally eager to learn the reason for 'at'.
Thank you for the logical question.
Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
Eugene S. Wilson
PS: Thank you Yakcal for throwing more light on the subject.
Ravindra
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This is all very impressive. I can confirm the idiom simply means 'to be in dispute with'.
Just a small point: I know Lancashire well, and have never come across Loggerheads. I must investigate.
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@ Yakcal
You have gathered a lot of valuable information in one place (that I had to search in various dictionaries - except for the townnames) - but you have one passage that would really make sense as an explanation for the idiom.
Quote: In the 17th century, a loggerhead was also recorded as 'an iron instrument with a long handle used for melting pitch and for heating liquids'. It is likely that the use of these tools as weapons was what was being referred to when rivals were first said to be 'at loggerheads'.
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"to be at <fighting with> loggerheads (heavy tools)" would make good sense and even "at" would be understandable.
Thanks for the time and trouble to get all this material together.
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@ Ravindra
"Take an idiom as it is" - you have a wise attitude that saves you a lot of searching around in dictionaries as heavy as a load of bricks and getting dusty fingers.
But on the other hand - for me it's fun to look for possibilities of an explanation that might be hidden behind an idiom.
The image with the fighting stags is not bad but we have no evidence that would back up that view. More probably is the explanation Yakal has given.
But now this idiom doesn't consist of pale and incomprehensible words, now it's a lively image of rough workers who get hot-tempered and begin to fight with the tools they are working with.
PS I can well imagine that a woman is the cause of the row.
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This Inn is in North Wales - very near the border of what used to be Lancashire (now, the new counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside come between). It's called the We Three Loggerheads - which gives a different image altogether to the word!
Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and Death shall have no dominion. - Dylan Thomas
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Dragon, I'm a bit thick in the head at the moment. What is the meaning of 'loggerhead' in the name of the inn?
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the pub sign...the story starts in Flintshire,  down the pub...  Quote:This pub, situated across the A494 from Loggerheads Country Park, was originally called the Three Loggerheads Inn.
The origin of the unusual name is believed to be a dispute between a local vicar and landowner in the mid-eighteenth century. The landlord of the inn invited the two parties to the inn in an attempt to broker an agreement. This led to the common usage of to be 'at Loggerheads' to mean a disagreement.
A replica of the old pub sign, painted by Richard Wilson RA from Colomendy Hall, hangs inside the restaurant and depicts the heads of the vicar and landowner, with the landlord looking on, accompanied by the words 'We Three Loggerheads' 
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Thank you thar, I was a bit rushed last night.
My point was that, the way the pub name is phrased, besides the people being at Loggerheads (the park) and at loggerheads (arguing), they were loggerheads (maybe a play on words with 'blockheads'?).
Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and Death shall have no dominion. - Dylan Thomas
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Finnish word pölkky = log, block
pölkkypää, tomppeli, tyhmyri, nuija... = blockhead, dunce, jackass, dumbbell, dummy, numskull, numbskull, fathead, chump, dunderhead, dolt, wooden-headed, loggerhead, clod, muggins...
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
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Roger - re your duelling stags -
Were you aware that that is exactly the origin of the phrase 'to lock horns' which can mean the same sort of thing as 'to be at loggerheads'?
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Romany wrote:Roger - re your duelling stags -
Were you aware that that is exactly the origin of the phrase 'to lock horns' which can mean the same sort of thing as 'to be at loggerheads'? --- Yes, I found that idiom too during my long researches as to 'at loggerheads'. I took it even as some evidence for my idea with the fighting stags. But I have totally forgotten about 'to look horns'. Thanks for reminding me of that second idiom.
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Fascinating discussion! I had always thought the phrase 'at loggerheads' derived from a logjam in a river.
Learn something new every day! Thanks Guys!
Learning is its own reward, and it's fun too!
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NancyLee - I confess I had never thought about it at all because its not a phrase I use myself.
But yeah, if, like Roger, one has mind pictures of certain phrases, I would have conjured up a logjam - and perhaps blokes (in bras and knickers a la "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm ok") leaping from one to another yelling insults at each other, perhaps?
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NancyLee wrote:Fascinating discussion! I had always thought the phrase 'at loggerheads' derived from a logjam in a river.
Learn something new every day! Thanks Guys! logjam - a wonderful association. So I see - native speakers have associations of their own as to "dark" idioms (idioms that are no longer immediately clear in their image). picture of a logjam 
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Oh yes, certainly native speakers have associations of their own - well at least THIS native speaker does. Language is very visual to me which is one of the reasons I so delight in it. But I think, were it not so, it would not have given rise to the Idiom?
I think that's one of the reasons I so love Australian idioms which are often somewhat satirical. Ray 41 posted somewhere that he had been "Flat out, like a lizard (baking in the sun?)..." can't quite remember. But the deliberate play with 'flat out' which means terribly busy, and a large Frill-Neck sitting motionless and monolithic on a rock, is what makes it such a great sentence to me.
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Yep, and another day flat like a lizard drinking Romany. 
RULES ARE FOR THE OBEYENCE OF FOOLS AND FOR THE GUIDENCE OF WISE MEN
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