[f. prec. sb.] trans. To furnish with a fortress or fortifications; to protect with, or as with a fortress. Chiefly transf. and fig.
1542. Becon, Pathw. Prayer, Wks. (1564), 68 a. Hitherto I haue fortressed this my treatise with the sayinges of ye godly learned Doctors.
1545. Joye, Exp. Dan., xii. 232. Their temple and cite Ierusalem were buylded pleasantly vpon that holy hyghe mount of Sion, well fortreced and turretted.
1546. in Strype, Eccl. Mem., I. lii. 390. How hath our most puissant and redoubted king fortressed his most flourishing monarchy, empire, and kingdom, with all things that any man can invent, for the prosperous conservation of a common weal!
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., Induct. Feli. ’Tis steddie, and must seme so impregnably fortrest with his own content that no envious thought could ever invade his spirit.
1652. Sir G. Wharton, trans. Rothmann’s Chiromancy, Ded. Wks. (1683), 2. Learning is best Fortress’d of those, by whom she is most understood.
1848. Lowell, Biglow P., Poems, 1890, II. 34. As Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists had to fortress themselves against, so it is little wonder if that traditional feud is long in wearing out of the stock.
1857. R. A. Vaughan, Art and History, in Fraser’s Mag., LVI. Oct., 499/1. Pleasant to his [the Hollander’s] eyes that picture of well-fed kine, ruminating on one of those grassy banks that fortressed him and his household from the rage of waters.
Hence Fortressed ppl. a., Fortressing vbl. sb.
1542. Becon, David’s Harp, Wks. (1564), 159 b. There was no kyngdom so inuincible, strong, and fortressed, but that he … was able easly to ouercome.
1624. Chapman, Homer’s Hymn to Venus, Wks. (1858), 95.
| The reverend, rich-crown’d, and fair queen, I sing, | |
| Venus, that owes in fate the fortressing | |
| Of all maritimal Cyprus. |
18[?]. Lowell, To W. L. Garrison, Poet Wks. 1890, I. 284.
| Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, | |
| And by the Present’s lips repeated still, | |
| In our single manhood to be bold, | |
| Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will? |
1895. H. Hughes, The Church of Sta. Maria dei Miracoli, Venice, in Reliquary, I. Oct., 194. These early Venetian Renaissance buildings differ in their lightness, freedom, and hsppiness from those of the stern, severe, massive, fortressed work of their sister city, Florence.
