make against

present singular third person makes against · participle present making against · participle past made against · past made against

1. archaicTo be unfavourable to; to work against.First known use 16th c.

   If the Authour will but persist in his assumption, the consequence shall make directly against him.

   1662 Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2)

   3 more examples

   The neglect of not answering your obliging letter wrote soon after your arrival at Calcutta, I confess makes very bad against me, but the truth is that I could give no other answer to what you mentioned concerning your Nephew than that it was not in my power to serve him […].

   1779, Joshua Reynolds, edited by John Ingamells and John Edgcumbe, The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Yale, published 2000, page 83

   And as there is no argument so good, but that being carried too far it will make against its purpose […].

   1819, “Stone”, in Abraham Rees, editor, The Cyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Literature, volume 34

   I must take more exercise than I have done for time past—it will make against my Studies but it is better to have health to preach what I now know ... than to know more and not be able to preach at all.

   1823 Joshua Nichols Glenn, Diary (Saturday 7 June 1823)