push up against

English

Verb

push up against (third-person singular simple present pushes up against, present participle pushing up against, simple past and past participle pushed up against)

1. (transitive) To generate pressure on (someone or something); to challenge.
   • 2016 October 25, Joshua Bloom, Waldo E. Martin, Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, Univ of California Press, →ISBN, page 36:

     Beyond delivering services, Bobby brought his revolutionary nationalist theory to the job and used the opportunity to push up against the ideological bias in the government program.

   • 2023 April 13, Allison Johnson, “Samsung Galaxy A54 5G review: a little bit flagship, but mostly midrange”, in The Verge‎^[1]:

     If there’s a bar for the features and performance that make a flagship phone, well, flagshippy, then the midrange Samsung Galaxy A54 5G pushes right up against it. When this $449 device is sitting on a table next to the $999 Galaxy S23 Plus, I can barely tell the two apart until I’m close enough to pick them up.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see push,‎ up against.