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close ranks |
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close ranks if members of a group close ranks, they publicly show that they support each other, especially when people outside of the group are criticizing them. In the past, the party would have closed ranks around its leader and defended him loyally against his critics. close ranks to show support for other members of your group. Dale urged his former rivals to close ranks behind his candidacy. Etymology: based on the military meaning of close ranks (= to form a straight row with other soldiers) |
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? References in classic literature |
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933-937) Also Cytherea bare to Ares the shield-piercer Panic and Fear, terrible gods who drive in disorder the close ranks of men in numbing war, with the help of Ares, sacker of towns: and Harmonia whom high-spirited Cadmus made his wife. But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them, --though as yet a mile in their rear, --than they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity. |
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close ranks
