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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
fortress
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
great
▪ Most domestic building was in wood and has perished, but some of the great mural fortresses survive.
▪ There's a great white fortress of a monastery crowning the top of the island.
▪ And shortly, in her armies' unremitting retreat, the great fortress of Przemysl was abandoned to siege.
▪ The great and impregnable fortress is accessible by means of four highways built on lofty viaducts.
▪ They retook the cursed city of Anlec and cast up a great fortress in the rubble.
▪ Arthur's great fortress lies further north at Cadbury, a huge hill which still bears the remnants of a formidable fortress.
▪ Kinks in the tail now and then, like the great square stone fortress cathedral of St Giles.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Its origins are lost in antiquity but the Rock has probably ben used as a fortress from the Iron Age.
▪ Now she saw a different, more pleasing aspect of the fortress.
▪ Only thirty succeeded in arriving at the gates of the fortress of the legendary Simorgh.
▪ Some of the more interesting pubs are along the Grassmarket, just below the fortress.
▪ The last hundred feet of elevation form a near-vertical cliff, effectively turning the mesa into an imposing dark fortress.
▪ Their mountainous homeland with its fortress valleys was a near impregnable base from which to sally forth.
▪ Without relationships, a man could be a fortress within himself, dedicated to a career and a dream.
▪ Yet another fortress stands on a promontory only half a mile away.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fortress

Fortress \For"tress\, n.; pl. Fortresses. [F. forteresse, OF. forteresce, fortelesce, LL. foralitia, fr. L. fortis strong. See Fort, and cf. Fortalice.] A fortified place; a large and permanent fortification, sometimes including a town; a fort; a castle; a stronghold; a place of defense or security.

Syn: Fortress, Fortification, Castle, Citadel.

Usage: A fortress is constructed for military purposes only, and is permanently garrisoned; a fortification is built to defend harbors, cities, etc.; a castle is a fortress of early times which was ordinarily a palatial dwelling; a citadel is the stronghold of a fortress or city, etc.

Fortress

Fortress \For"tress\, v. t. To furnish with a fortress or with fortresses; to guard; to fortify.
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
fortress

early 14c., from Old French forteresse, forterece "strong place, fortification" (12c.), 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 also is in duress, largesse, riches. For change of medial -l- to -r- in Old French, compare orne "elm" from Latin ulmus; chartre from cartula; chapitre from capitulum.

Wiktionary
fortress

n. 1 A fortified place; a large and permanent fortification, sometimes including a town; a fort; a castle; a stronghold; a place of defense or security. 2 (context chess English) A position that, if obtained by the weaker side, will prevent penetration by the opposing side, generally achieving a draw. vb. To furnish with a fortress or with fortresses; to guard; to fortify.

WordNet
fortress

n. a fortified defensive structure [syn: fort]

Wikipedia
Fortress (programming language)

Fortress is a discontinued experimental programming language for high-performance computing, created by Sun Microsystems with funding from DARPA's High Productivity Computing Systems project. One of the language designers was Guy L. Steele Jr., whose previous work includes Scheme, Common Lisp, and Java.

Fortress (disambiguation)

A fortress is a fortification, a defensive military construction.

Fortress or The Fortress may also refer to:

Fortress (1992 film)

Fortress is a 1992 Australian science fiction film directed by Stuart Gordon and shot at Warner Bros. Movie World in Queensland, Australia. The story takes place in a dystopian future. The main character in the movie, John Henry Brennick ( Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen B. Brennick ( Loryn Locklin) are sent to a maximum security prison because they are expecting a second child, which is against strict one-child policies. It was followed by a sequel, Fortress 2: Re-Entry in 2000.

Fortress (Sister Hazel album)

Fortress, released in 2000, is Sister Hazel's third studio album.

Fortress (1985 film)

Fortress is a 1985 Australian television film criminal thriller directed by Arch Nicholson and written by Everett De Roche, and starring Rachel Ward, based on Gabrielle Lord's 1980 novel the Fortress.

Fortress (Protest the Hero album)

Fortress is the second studio album by Canadian band Protest the Hero which was released on January 29, 2008 on Vagrant Records in the US and Underground Operations in Canada.

Fortress (2001 video game)

Fortress is a tower defense strategy video game developed by Pipe Dream Interactive and published by Majesco Games for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld game console.

Fortress (Miniature Tigers album)

Fortress (stylized as F O R T R E S S), is the Miniature Tigers' second full-length album. It was released on July 27, 2010.

Fortress (chess)

In chess, the fortress is an endgame drawing technique in which the side behind in material sets up a zone of protection around their king that cannot be penetrated by the opponent. This only works when the opponent does not have a passed pawn or cannot create one, unless that pawn can be stopped (e.g. see the opposite-colored bishops example). An elementary fortress is a theoretically drawn (i.e. a book draw) position with reduced material in which a passive defense will maintain the draw .

Fortresses commonly have four characteristics:

  1. Useful pawn breakthroughs are not possible
  2. If the stronger side has pawns, they are firmly blocked
  3. The stronger side's king cannot penetrate, either because it is cut off or near the edge of the board
  4. Zugzwang positions cannot be forced, because the defender has waiting moves available .

Fortresses pose a problem for computer chess: computers fail to recognize fortress-type positions and are unable to achieve the win against them despite claiming a winning advantage .

Fortress (solitaire)

Fortress is a solitaire card game which is played with a deck of playing cards, of the Castle family. It has two more tableau piles than Beleaguered Castle and the piles are shorter.

First, ten overlapping rows of cards are formed, two containing six cards (one on the left and one at the right) and the rest having five cards (four at each side). A space is left in the middle for the aces, which when available, become the bases for the foundations. The foundations are each built up by suit up to kings.

At the tableau rows, the top card (i.e. the fully exposed one) of each row is available for play on the foundations or in the tableau. Tableau building is up or down by suit as the player pleases. However, one card can be moved at a time, and building is not round-the-corner, i.e. aces cannot be placed over kings and vice versa. Spaces can be filled with any available card.

The game is won when all cards are built onto the foundations. But like Beleaguered Castle and its cousin Streets and Alleys, winning is slim because of the distribution of high cards in the tableau.

Fortress (Grin)

Fortress is the code name of a cancelled action role-playing video game that was in development by Grin. Director Ulf Andersson devised the concept for Fortress and preproduction began in the second half of 2008. During development, Square Enix approached the developer and proposed making the game a spin-off of Final Fantasy XII. Grin reconceived the game in the recurring Final Fantasy world of Ivalice, and included elements of Final Fantasy XII such as stylistic motifs and character designs; additional elements included chocobos and other recurring creatures from the Final Fantasy series. It was to be released on the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 platforms.

During development, Square Enix did not pay Grin over several months, and disapproved of the game's Nordic art style. Grin worked to bring the game's art style closer to the Final Fantasy series, but after six months of development was told that no funding would ever come from Square Enix, and the developer filed for bankruptcy several days later. Word of the project leaked out through art portfolios of those who worked on the project and even a tech demo surfaced. In 2011, Fortress was thought to have been in development by an undisclosed studio, but this was also suspended and the game will not be released in any form.

Fortress (2012 film)

Fortress is a 2012 action drama war film directed by Michael R. Phillips and released by Bayou Pictures. The film follows the crew of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber Lucky Lass as they fly in the campaign against Italy during World War II.

Fortress (Alter Bridge album)

Fortress is the fourth studio album by the rock band Alter Bridge, released by Roadrunner Records on September 25, 2013. Michael Baskette, who produced Alter Bridge's previous two albums, Blackbird and AB III, returns as producer. It was released by Roadrunner Records worldwide except in the United States, where it was self-released on October 8, 2013, through EMI. The lead single, " Addicted to Pain", was released on August 12, 2013. The album was widely acclaimed, with critics praising its musicianship, lyrics, and experimentation.

Fortress (online game)

Fortress is a shooter video game developed and published by Netsgo. In November 18, 2011, service for the game has been terminated on South Korea and Japan. The game has spawned an animated series, Tank Knights Fortress, and a sequel game, Fortress 2.

Fortress (Thee Oh Sees song)

"Fortress" is a song by American garage rock band Thee Oh Sees, released as a limited edition single on February 12, 2016 on Castle Face Records. The song, and its b-side, "Man in a Suitcase", were recorded during the same sessions as the band's sixteenth studio album, Mutilator Defeated At Last (2015). "Man in a Suitcase" was performed by the band at several live performances, prior to its release, and is included on the live album, Live in San Francisco (2016).

Fortress (1984 video game)

Fortress is a computer game written by Mat Newman, developed by Amcon and released by Pace Software on cassette tape for the BBC Micro home computer in 1984. It was based on the SEGA game Zaxxon that had been released in arcades in 1982. The game play was relatively unique to the BBC as it offered the player a 3D isometric perspective which simulated three dimensions from a third-person viewpoint.

Usage examples of "fortress".

It was here that we reached the outer boundaries of Akkadian rule, and bid farewell to our escort, who would remain, supplementing the garrison of an outlying Akkadian fortress.

Tower, though the church of Allhallows Barking hid part of the fortress from view.

Vo Astur and Vo Mimbre were fortresses, and they looked like fortresses, blocky and unlovely.

Lord Strange, lord of the Isle of Man, duke of Atholl, current owner of the last fortress within the British Isles to undergo a siege, Blair House.

In the meantime he detached a powerful armament to Italy, where they invested the Imperial fortress of Aula, the garrison of which was obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war.

With the Americans falling back on Bataan, and the British retreating to Fortress Singapore, Pug could see little hope anywhere, except in the Russian counterattacks.

Four plunger switches closed, that tiny pilot ray became an enormous rod of force, and as those two gigantic beams met in exact opposition and neutralized each other a solid wall of blinding brilliance appeared in the empty ether behind the Vorkulian fortress.

There she was anchored by tractor beams, and the two hundred picked men of the I-P police, in full space equipment, prepared to board the gigantic fortress of the void.

And then the cold weather before long put an end to the little promenades of rime by the shore, and Gard had to try other lines of attack on this radiant and beflowered German fortress.

Once students and professors crowded the rooms and hallways of this fortress, studying modern irrigation and biotechnical crop engineering.

Commander Anne Blenheim was enjoying what was almost her first look around the vast interior of the ancient Templar Fortress that enclosed the Radiant itself, and of which she had very recently assumed command.

The groundcar easing its way toward Commander Blenheim through moderate traffic was of a type unremarkable on the streets of the Fortress, though it would have been conspicuous almost anywhere else.

THE MAIN HALL OF THE FORTRESS, Lancelot, Gawain, Galahad, Bors, Dagonet and Tristran stood behind chairs at the thick-plank circular table, waiting.

Wall fortress with Bors and later gave birth to a son she insisted was his, he chose to be philosophical and accept the child as his own.

Throughout the years, it remained a dazzling white fortress of taste and calm, with an elegant double bowfront, striped emerald lawns, pergolas and a maze, and garish red and blue flags fluttering brazenly between pyramids of hyacinths all along its battlements.