standing ground
noun1
Figuratively A place on which someone or something can stand firmly, especially in order to fight a contest or to take a secure view of something; a secure foundation.
- In opposing them we shall proceed […] on that firm standing-ground which all our truly great Divines have marked out, of adherence to the principles of the Ancient Church.1848, William Hodge Mill, Five Sermons on the Nature of Christianity, section 2:
- Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly.1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book I, chapter 7: