Other forms: animosities
Animosity is strong open dislike. Not hidden, and usually with a history behind it.
It takes towards or between, and it is used most about relationships that have gone wrong, so animosity between two departments is a real management problem. The word implies hostility that shows rather than resentment kept private. It is formal and slightly grand. Ill feeling is the plain equivalent, hostility is stronger, and bad blood is the informal phrase for exactly the same thing.
1nounanimosityStrong hostility or dislike.
“There was open animosity between the two families.”
Animosity was courage once. Latin animositās meant spirit or vehemence, from animus, the mind or the spirit, and the word soured somewhere on its way into English.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂enh₁-
Latin
animositas — courage, spirit, vehemence
French
animosité
English, today
animosity
Built from
From French animosité, from Latin animositas (“courage, spirit, vehemence”), from animosus, from animus (“courage, spirit, mind”); see animose, animate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA