stand in the gate

present singular third person stands in the gate · participle present standing in the gate · participle past stood in the gate · past stood in the gate · alternative stand in the gates

1. datedidiomaticTo occupy a place or position of advantage, power, or defence.

   1 more example

   "What brings you to my poor door?" she cried, speaking high through her nose. "I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and buried; I have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me; any beggar can pluck me by the baird[2]—and a baird there is, and that's the worst of it yet!" she added partly to herself.

   1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona, London; Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC