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fortress

UK/ˈfɔː.tɹəs/US/ˈfoɹ.tɹɪs/
nounB2Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,520 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: fortresses

A fortress is a large strongly defended building. An ancient fortress, the fortress fell, a fortress town.

It differs from a castle in purpose rather than size: a castle is a lord's residence that is also defended, where a fortress exists to be defended and nothing else. Artillery ended the tall wall and forced the low angled one. Note the Latin fortis, strong.

John Scofield · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of fortress

  1. 1nounfortressA large strongly defended building.B2

    “The soldiers defended the fortress on the hill for months.”

fortress is a defended building.

Where it comes from

Old French forteresce comes from Latin fortis, strong. Fort and force come from the same strength.

  1. Latin

    fortis — strong

  2. Medieval Latin

    fortalitia

  3. Old French

    forteresce — strong place, fortification

  4. English, today

    fortress

Built from

  • orne · Old French — elm

Early 14 c., from Old French forteresce (“strong place, fortification”), variant of fortelesse, from Medieval Latin fortalitia, from Latin fortis (“strong”) (see fort)itia, added to adjectives to form nouns of quality or condition. French -ess, from Latin -itia is also in words such as duress, prowess, largesse and richesse. For change of medial -l- to -r- in Old French, compare orne (“elm”) from ulmus; chartre from cartula and chapitre from capitulum. 12th century.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

fortress in the wild

  • Construction of the fortress began in 1748 under the Swedish Crown as a defense against Russia.

    Suomenlinna

  • Despite its formidable reputation as the "Gibraltar of the North", the fortress surrendered after only two months, on 3 May 1808.

    Suomenlinna

  • The earlier of the two projects was intended to protect the site from rising water and to restore parts of the fortress.

    Fortress of Louisbourg

  • The castle, then called Judin, was destroyed by the Mamluk sultan Baybars after he conquered the nearby fortress of Montfort from the Crusaders in 1271.

    Jiddin

  • After Daher was killed by the Ottomans in 1775, the new governor of Acre, Jazzar Pasha, destroyed the fortress.

    Jiddin

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the fortis family

effortfortress

fortress — used about once every 984 pages · #4,520 · point at the bar for the others