# fight the good fight

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/fight-the-good-fight
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

To persevere with determination in a worthy and difficult struggle.

## Examples

- Keep fighting the good fight.
- For thirty years she fought the good fight for cleaner rivers, winning slowly and losing often.
- Underfunded and outnumbered, the small legal-aid team kept fighting the good fight, taking on cases nobody else would touch and measuring success one client at a time.

## Origin

The phrase comes from Paul's letters to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 6:12 he urges, "Fight the good fight of faith," and near the end of his life, in 2 Timothy 4:7, he looks back and declares, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Paul's "fight" is a metaphor drawn from the athletic contest and the battlefield — a sustained effort of endurance rather than a single clash. What makes the fight good is not victory but the worth of the cause and the refusal to give up on it. English kept both the spirit and the wording. To fight the good fight is to keep struggling for something worthwhile against the odds — a cause, a principle, a long recovery — with the emphasis on perseverance and integrity rather than on winning.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.