make a stand

Idioms and Phrases

Hold firm against something or someone, as in The government was determined to make a stand against all forms of terrorism . This idiom transfers the early meaning of holding ground against an enemy to other issues. [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

But resistance will be harder to sustain, in part because everyone is already so tired of fighting all of this, and also because the action is going to be coming so fast and furious on all fronts that bewildered and beleaguered groups on the left will hardly know where to make a stand or even start.

From Slate

“It’s not just the state, it’s trickled down to everyday things - it can be in your household, it can be in your streets. To make a stand to voice out and to look out for one another.”

From BBC

Whether their opinion’s misguided or not, they were willing to make a stand for something.

From Los Angeles Times

So many superb and significant houses have slipped through L.A.’s civic fingers and into the steel scoop of a bulldozer, yet the city has just chosen to make a stand in Brentwood, preserving in perpetuity as a cultural-historic monument an otherwise undistinguished 1929 Spanish-style house that actress Marilyn Monroe bought in 1962, lived in for six months, and died in.

From Los Angeles Times

“I just told our guys, we are going to make a stand and we are going to get better,” Carlisle said.

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• allow
• challenge
• confront
• deal with
• encounter
• endure
• experience
• fight
• meet
• oppose
• risk
• run into
• suffer
• take