stand upon one's dignity

Definitions

1. 1

   To have or affect a high notion of one's own rank, privilege, or character.

   • They did not stand upon their dignity, nor give their minds to being or to seeming as elegant and as fine as anybody else.
   • "By Gar! you've got an Irish tongue in your head anyhow," cried the saloon-keeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious visitor or to stand upon his dignity.

The neighborhood