make common cause

present singular third person makes common cause · participle present making common cause · participle past made common cause · past made common cause

1. To cooperate, to enter into an alliance for a shared goal.

   They preferred endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in defence of freedom, with heretics generally.

   1859, John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, London: John W. Parker & Son, Introductory, p. 18

   3 more examples

   […] in a great community, the reformer has the voice and approbation of a majority to encourage him. In a very narrow circle he will have no part of the society, in which he lives, to support him against the rest. They will all make common cause against him, and sooner or later overcome his resolution, or break his heart.

   1786, Philip Francis, Speech in the House of Commons, on Tuesday the 7th of March, 1786, London: J. Debrett, page 35

   The factory girl, the shop girl, the college girl, the woman in the home, the woman active in public welfare, and the woman in society, as well as all the men in the nation, should make common cause of race improvement, and no far-reaching improvement is possible while young girls are allowed to exhaust their physical energy and jeopardize their moral integrity in occupations where the remuneration practically precludes a normal standard of life.

   1910, Annie Marion MacLean, chapter 10, in Wage-Earning Women, New York: Macmillan, page 161

   We were both flawed, obvious victims of physical misfortune. You would think such people would make common cause, but it could just as often happen that they don’t. Each may be reminded by the other of something sooner forgotten.

   2009, Alice Munro, “Face”, in Too Much Happiness, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, page 145

   Synonyms: join forces, team up