sparring partner

Be a sparring partner for someone who is unsure of their assumptions and audits.

At the very least, he would make a thoughtful and high-minded sparring partner for Clinton in the debates that lie ahead.

Johansson needed a sparring partner, and a young, brash man, just a year out of the amateurs, volunteered.

SMUG is willing to fight it out and has a willing sparring partner in Lively, who has been sued five times by gay activists.

She was with her on most of the major swims of the 1970s, is a friend, adviser, and sparring partner.

He had had no sparring partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient.

Bit thick, I mean to say, a sparring-partner going at him like that.

Then he was a sparring partner, I think they call it, for a prizefighter.

He's been sparring partner of one of the champions and he thinks a good deal of himself.

It was the fact that Bugs Butler was lowering himself to extend his powers against a sparring-partner that shocked Mr. Burrowes.