Verb

(en verb)

To hold up a claim emphatically.

(I am defending her; see a similar example in the context below for comparison.)

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=5 , passage=But Miss Thorn relieved the situation by laughing aloud,

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist . Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

To demand continually that something happen or be done.

To stand (on); to rest (upon); to lean (upon).

* 1709 , Venturus Mandey, Synopsis Mathematica Universalis

Angles likewise which insist on the Diameter, are all Right Angles.

Verb

(en verb)

To declare openly and boldly, as something believed to be right; to own, acknowledge or confess frankly.

* 1858 , Henry Stephens Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (volume 1, page 461)

in 1786, and for some period later, there were few, if any, prominent Americans, who avowed themselves in favor of broadly democratic systems.

To bind or devote by a vow.

(Wyclif)

(legal) To acknowledge and justify, as an act done. See avowry.

(Blackstone)