up against

Idioms  

1. Contending or confronted with, as in I'm up against a strong opponent in this election. This idiom is also put as up against it, which means “in serious difficulty, especially in desperate financial straits.” For example, When the collection agency called again, we knew we were up against it. [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

Alphabet’s AI chatbot, Gemini, has proved popular, but is up against OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Chinese developers and others to grab market share—and this is before it is able to charge anything like the cost of running it to customers.

From The Wall Street Journal

“Rocky,” the surprise winner in 1977, stars Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, a boxer who gets a chance to go up against the world champion.

From Los Angeles Times

“We are, all of us, breathless, up against a rock,” Fennell continues, referencing a particularly evocative scene she imagined for her film.

From Los Angeles Times

I climbed down, and when I got back to the ground I leaned up against the tree, put my face right into its old, white trunk, and said, “Thank you.”

From Literature

"A lot of work has been done to identify all the victims. But in his journal, some only have first names, and there we found ourselves up against a wall. That's why we decided to launch this appeal - and also in case there are other victims not listed in his journal," Manteaux added.

From BBC

Related Words

• anti
• antithetical
• averse
• disputed
• hostile
• inimical
• opposing