push up against

present singular third person pushes up against · participle present pushing up against · participle past pushed up against · past pushed up against

1. transitiveTo generate pressure on (someone or something); to challenge.

   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.

   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

   1 more example

   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.

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

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