argue for

argue for

1. To state reasons in support of someone or something. My mother has spent her life arguing for women's rights. She's my daughter—I will always argue for her.
2. To serve as evidence in support of something. Hinton's novel argues for an understanding of youth as a complex, traumatic time.
See also: argue
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

argue for someone or something

to make a case in favor of someone or something; to speak on behalf of someone or something in an argument. Are you prepared to argue strongly for this proposal? We will argue for our candidate in the debate.
See also: argue
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

argue for

v.
1. To put forth reasons supporting something; make a case for something: The students argued for a new gymnasium, but the administration did not want to spend the money needed to build it.
2. To act as evidence or support for something: These new facts argue for a different analysis. The fact that your route to work is so slow argues for giving my suggestion a try.
3. To speak on behalf of someone in an argument: Lawyers are supposed to argue for their clients.
See also: argue
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • arguing for the sake of arguing
  • argument
  • lay (something) at rest
  • lay at rest
  • set (something) at rest
  • kiss the rod
  • back at it
  • back at it (again)
  • (something) will get (someone) nowhere
  • (something) won't get (someone) anywhere
References in periodicals archive
Increasing returns therefore seem to argue for some form of monopoly, and in the late 1970s Joseph Stiglitz and Avinash Dixit developed a growth model of monopolistic competition--that is, limited competition with increasing returns to scale.
Creation myths: does innovation require intellectual property rights?
The centrality of affirmative action rebuts one other point made by those who now argue for returning to the Civil Rights Act strategy.
Civil rights, legislative wrongs
Even if the Service successfully argued that the costs were, instead, incurred to acquire or create a new business, the taxpayer would lose the immediate deduction but could argue for 60-month amortization.
Tax treatment of due diligence and start-up costs remains uncertain
Keller appeals to cross-gendered images of the divine in early Christianity (a female Holy Spirit, a breasted Father) to argue for a current conception of "gender fluidity" that can maintain a sense of the connectedness and "ethical mutuality" which should characterize our moral subjectivities.
Horizons in Feminist Theology: Identity, Tradition, and Norms.'
For instance, the authors of Ties That Bind argue for a perspective on social policy that focuses on the interdependence between generations (Kingson et al., 1986).
Generational equity, generational interdependence, and the framing of the debate over social security reform
First, he attempts to bridge the gulf between those who argue for private property, individual rights, and freedom of contract from a "natural law" perspective and those who advance these ideas from a more utilitarian perspective.
Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good
For example, she suggests that "the majority of suffragists appeared more reluctant than male legislators to argue for woman suffrage as a means of guaranteeing white supremacy," (p.
Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question
While each author has his own spin on gay culture, they collectively argue for a mass movement away from promiscuous sex, widespread recreational drug use, and emphasis on the physical.
Falwell, Gingrich ... Signorile?