From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishassert itselfassert itselfEFFECT/INFLUENCEif an idea or belief asserts itself, it begins to influence something National pride began to assert itself. → assert
Examples from the Corpus
assert itself• Lying in clouds of scent in the sunken tub filled to the brim, that streak of equanimity she had asserted itself.• So by this means, the interest of ownership in the performance of the business owned can assert itself.• The current wild weather through the West and Midwest again has raised the question: Is global warming finally asserting itself?• The party will continue to assert itself and severely punish political dissent.• The former character asserts itself, and some-times disagreeably, weaKly, disgracefully.• Our novelist's intellectual humour is asserting itself beneath the narrative.• This was the way in which uncertainty asserted itself in Heisenberg's original formulation of quantum mechanics.• Islam began to assert itself in the seventh century.• Now, with the future assured, the comfortable past asserted itself unchanged. 