stand up on one's hind legs

present singular third person stands up on one's hind legs · participle present standing up on one's hind legs · participle past stood up on one's hind legs · past stood up on one's hind legs

1. idiomaticinformalTo act boldly; to take responsibility.

   Now we have got to stand up on our hind legs and fight harder than ever for the right to govern our domestic affairs without outside interference.

   2015, Glenn Feldman, The Great Melding, page 124

   2 more examples

   I copied them out of an American Automobile Association report because I'm on the spot for a talk at the Kiwanis Club luncheon next week, and I've found that whenever you've got to stand up on your hind legs and expose your ignorance the best thing you can do is put down a nice thick smoke screen of figures between you and your audience.

   1941, Popular Science, volume 138, number 3, page 140

   We became the nation we are on principles of individual initiative, to stand up on our hind legs and lick them if they needed it, and they called it jingoism at one time, […]

   1957, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs, Building a World of Free Peoples: Hearings..., page 539