come out swinging

also come out fighting

to strongly defend yourself or something you believe in Both candidates came out swinging in the televised debate Sunday night.

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Anacletus	-	Ancient Greek (Latinized)
Mette	ME-de (Danish)	Danish, Norwegian
Vili	VEE-lee (Finnish)	Hungarian, Slovene, Finnish
Earlene	URL-een	English
Sandie	SAN-dee	English (Rare)
Borisu	-	Medieval Slavic