rearguard action 
noun
A defensive action carried out by a retreating army: the troops remaining in the islands fought a bitter rearguard action figurative women cadets are fighting a rearguard action for their cause...
- During the 1924 retreat from Chaouen to Tétouan in west Morocco, a disaster even greater than Anual, it fought a month-long rearguard action under Franco.
- By the first week in January 1945, the German onslaught had been stopped and the Wehrmacht was fighting a desperate rearguard action.
- After the Glorious Revolution he was made a Jacobite duke, fought at the Boyne, carried on the rearguard action, and died in Limerick just before it was forced to capitulate.
- childcare
- childcarer
- child-centred
- child-crowing
- child development
- child-directed speech
- Childe
- childed
- child endowment
- childe parte
- Childermas
- Childers, Erskine
- child-farming
- child-free
- child-friendliness
- child-friendly
- child-geared
- child genius
- child guidance
- childhead
- childhood
- childhood sweetheart
- childie
- childing
- childish