This study addresses the issue of “the linguistic picture of the world” as elaborated by the Ethnolinguistic School of Lublin. Being an interpretation of the ways of conceptualizing the world entrenched in language, the linguistic picture of the world presents the views specific for a given community, its hierarchies and socially accepted systems of values. Fixed expressions are a perfect research material as they abound in cultural information arising from the interaction between linguistic meanings and other symbolic cultural codes. In the present article, an attempt has been made to explore English and Polish phraseology relating to ‘conflict’ with a view to retrieving such entrenched concepts. Expressions literally referring to the concept of conflict, expressions containing culturally recognized metonymic symbols of ‘conflict’, and those depicting activities associated with a state of ‘conflict’ have been analysed. The two realms turned out to be highly analogous, despite certain discrepancies resulting from divergent historical, political, and cultural conditions.