make against
verb1
Archaic To be unfavourable to; to work against.
- 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)
- 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:
2 more examples
- 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)