make head against

Verb

make head against (third-person singular simple present makes head against, present participle making head against, simple past and past participle made head against)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To attack or take up arms against (someone).
   • Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head / Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye / And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him / Bootless home and weather-beaten back.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
   • The next, whose Fate drew on, was Sir James Desmond, who, on the Fourth of August in the above mentioned Year, having made an Inroad upon Muskerry, and taken a great Booty from Sir Cormac Mac Teige, Sheriff of Cork; the said Sheriff making Head against him, recover’d the Booty, wounded Sir James...1740, William Oldys, The Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, London, page 28
2. (figuratively) To resist, oppose.
   • Such is then this gallaunt and holie confidence of the spouse to braue her enemies, in whose person the Apostle speaking, wee see […] how hee beareth downe euerie high thing which presumeth to make head against God […]1600, Thomas Walkington (attributed), An Exposition of the Two First Verses of the Sixt Chapter to the Hebrewes in Forme of a Dialogue, London: Thomas Man, Sermon 26, p. 348
   • […] if Children were early instructed, Knowledge would insensibly insinuate it self before their Years had arm’d them with Obstinacy enough to make Head against it.1715, Richard Bulstrode, “Of Religion”, in Miscellaneous Essays, London: Jonas Browne, page 307