take up the cudgels

Whether other women will take up the cudgels remains to be seen.

She would not take up the cudgels of such a battle.

It is right now that we need to take up the cudgels for Europe.

I shall make a point of taking up the cudgels in the House.

He looked about the group, as though expecting some other person to take up the cudgels.

Perhaps, after all, I am taking up the cudgels against you rather prematurely.

That night he resolved to "take up the cudgels" himself.

I liked his taking up the cudgels for the children."

From that experience grew his impulse to take up the cudgels against orthodoxy.

Will he take up the cudgels in his own behalf now, do ye think?"

They have this stupid habit of taking up the cudgels for other people."

He took up the cudgels against the anti-clericalism unleashed by the political left at the war's end.

At this Lucy forthwith took up the cudgels for the empire.

It would require suicidal altruism to take up the cudgels for the Palestinians.

But this paper and its Sunday stablemate have taken up the cudgels on behalf of the countryside.

The unions, he said, did not give leadership roles to people from those groups and "could not take up the cudgels" to fight their causes.

He reclined again to take up the cudgels about freedom and slavery on behalf of the Epicureans.

Today he took up the cudgels to deal with something that really keeps his Illinois constituents up at night, tossing and turning.

Mr. Condit, they said, was reluctant to take up the cudgels again.

The EU needs to be determined in taking up the cudgels for Airbus.

Armstrong was first to take up the cudgels at the end of last season, and a little piece of bantering brought in Harrison.

Other papers took up the cudgels.

Later, as problems became evident when the plane began to fly, Democrats in Congress took up the cudgels to bash the bomber.

In the United Nations, it is the EU that takes up the cudgels.

Living through the post-Darwinian debates, he invariably took up the cudgels on behalf of scientific rationalism.