What's the difference between bolster and fortify?

Bolster


Definition:

  • (n.) A long pillow or cushion, used to support the head of a person lying on a bed; -- generally laid under the pillows.
  • (n.) A pad, quilt, or anything used to hinder pressure, support any part of the body, or make a bandage sit easy upon a wounded part; a compress.
  • (n.) Anything arranged to act as a support, as in various forms of mechanism, etc.
  • (n.) A cushioned or a piece part of a saddle.
  • (n.) A cushioned or a piece of soft wood covered with tarred canvas, placed on the trestletrees and against the mast, for the collars of the shrouds to rest on, to prevent chafing.
  • (n.) Anything used to prevent chafing.
  • (n.) A plate of iron or a mass of wood under the end of a bridge girder, to keep the girder from resting directly on the abutment.
  • (n.) A transverse bar above the axle of a wagon, on which the bed or body rests.
  • (n.) The crossbeam forming the bearing piece of the body of a railway car; the central and principal cross beam of a car truck.
  • (n.) the perforated plate in a punching machine on which anything rests when being punched.
  • (n.) That part of a knife blade which abuts upon the end of the handle.
  • (n.) The metallic end of a pocketknife handle.
  • (n.) The rolls forming the ends or sides of the Ionic capital.
  • (n.) A block of wood on the carriage of a siege gun, upon which the breech of the gun rests when arranged for transportation.
  • (v. t.) To support with a bolster or pillow.
  • (v. t.) To support, hold up, or maintain with difficulty or unusual effort; -- often with up.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) His senior role in the Popalzai tribe and his chairmanship since 2005 of Kandahar provincial council bolstered his reputation as an Asian version of a mafia don.
  • (2) And if the Brexit vote was somehow not respected by Westminster, Le Pen could be bolstered in her outrage.
  • (3) • Mubarak becomes a major mediator in the Arab-Israeli peace process, remaining a consistent US ally bolstered by billions of dollars in American aid.
  • (4) The AP reports: The incremental assistance would be aimed both at bolstering the Ukrainian military as it seeks to halt the advances of pro-Russian forces in the east, as well as showing symbolic U.S. support for Ukraine's efforts.
  • (5) Clegg went on: "Unless there's overwhelming evidence that this [campaign] is a really effective way of bolstering public confidence in the immigration system, and bearing down on illegal behaviour in the immigration system, I'm going to need a lot of persuasion this is something [we want to continue]."
  • (6) A description of sleeping arrangements of the Kung San people of the Kalahari desert; speculations of the need for arousability in primitive society to prevent predators from attacking serve to bolster the view point.
  • (7) The survey was conducted at the end of a year in which Chinese growth had slowed and the eurozone stagnated, raising expectations that Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank will try to bolster the eurozone by starting QE on Thursday .
  • (8) The link between IUD use and pelvic inflammatory disease is bolstered by data showing a 3-fold increase in salpingitis in IUD users compared with women in general.
  • (9) Downing Street was irritated when Michael Gove bolstered Eurosceptics on Sunday, the day of Cameron's departure for the US, by saying he would vote to leave the EU if a referendum were held now.
  • (10) Jinsa describes its mandate as two-fold: "To educate the American public about the importance of an effective US defence capability...and to inform the American defence and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East."
  • (11) At the request of the state governor, the interim president, Michel Temer, has authorized 1,000 soldiers and 200 marines to bolster security.
  • (12) Jared Genser Germany went public with its anger about Beijing’s handling of Liu’s case on Monday, accusing Chinese security services of leaking surveillance footage of Liu being visited by a German doctor in order to bolster a propaganda campaign pushing the idea that the dissident was too ill to be evacuated from China.
  • (13) The Bank of England sends a clear message to banks today to cut staff bonuses and share dividends so that they can bolster their capital cushions while maintaining lending to businesses and households.
  • (14) In a review published on Thursday, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai) says the Department for International Development (DfID) has failed to turn rhetoric about how bolstering the private sector can help end global poverty into a realistic, well-balanced and joined-up portfolio of programmes.
  • (15) It would also bolster the image of the Socialist president, François Hollande , as a social reformer after a hotly contested move to legalise gay marriage in 2012.
  • (16) For months, Tom McCarthy’s journalistic thriller Spotlight has been at the head of the pack – further bolstered by its recent Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations.
  • (17) Primark’s heady pace of expansion has bolstered ABF, which is grappling with lower sugar prices that have reduced profits in its core business.
  • (18) He would have liked to spend the summer bolstering his case for a critical autumn referendum on constitutional reforms he supports, but instead he has been forced to grapple with the banking issues.
  • (19) The salience of immigration is reinforced by a separate question in which "curbing immigration" comes top of varied populist policies as the "single action politicians could take to bolster your faith in politics", with 26% picking that priority, as against 19% who prefer tax cuts and 15% who prioritise a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.
  • (20) Criticism that Africa is allowing its natural resources to be exploited, and that China is content to bolster dictators and ignore human rights abuses, merely feeds the partners' anti-western sentiment.

Fortify


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To add strength to; to strengthen; to confirm; to furnish with power to resist attack.
  • (v. t.) To strengthen and secure by forts or batteries, or by surrounding with a wall or ditch or other military works; to render defensible against an attack by hostile forces.
  • (v. i.) To raise defensive works.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Since iron from fortified formulas is well absorbed during the first three months of life, even if it is not immediately used for hemoglobin formation, an inccrease in the iron stores will occur...
  • (2) But she noticed Mohamed getting smaller and sicker, until she eventually brought him to the centre, where the nuns give him F-75 – an enriched formula adapted for malnourished children, fortified porridge, plumpy nut, and soup with meat and fish.
  • (3) These results indicate that healthy VLBW infants maintain adequate growth and macronutrient balance for the first 2 months postnatally when fed mothers' milk fortified with additional skim and cream components.
  • (4) Thirty infants in the breast-milk group and 29 in the fortified group completed the study.
  • (5) The crops were fortified with each fungicide at 3 levels per crop.
  • (6) Feeding a zinc-fortified formula on the other hand had no influence on copper nutritional status.
  • (7) Lowest content of ascorbic acid occurred in bruised beans cooked in copper-fortified water.
  • (8) In NADPH-fortified reconstituted systems containing P-450b, DHS yielded a stable type III spectral complex with peaks at 428 and 458 nm; a complex with a single 456 nm peak was formed in systems containing cytochrome P-450c.
  • (9) Danes spent a day with an officer at Langley, the CIA's headquarters in Virginia, and that seems to have fortified her patriotism, too.
  • (10) When the same nuclei were incubated in the same medium fortified with dialyzed cytosol, spermidine and yeast RNA (medium II), release of labeled 60-S and 40-S particles was observed.
  • (11) The Americans went first, a great convoy of armoured Jeeps snaking out from their fortified embassy under air cover.
  • (12) Recoveries averaged 86.8% for unexposed fish fortified with 2-12 ppm of chlorpyrifos.
  • (13) Bacterial corneal ulcer is a potentially blinding emergency which should ideally be treated by an ophthalmologist aided by slit lamp biomicroscopy, microbial stain and cultures, and then selected fortified topical antibiotics.
  • (14) Mutagenic activity in the creatine-fortified product was enhanced 15-fold.
  • (15) For blind fortified samples containing 800 ppb FBZ, average recovery and relative standard deviations for repeatability and reproducibility (RSDr and RSDR) based on results from 6 of the participating laboratories were 83%, 12.7%, and 14.0%, respectively.
  • (16) Despite Ca and P concentrations 50% to 100% higher in the fortified human milk than is usual in unfortified human milk, group FMM's Ca and P intakes remained significantly below those fed formula (P less than 0.001).
  • (17) The fortified children presented higher mean ferritin values at the end of the first and second school periods.
  • (18) The protein efficiency ratio (PER) for the fortified cereal alone was 1.4; however, when given as a mixed diet of cereal and humanized milk (providing 41 and 59 per cent of the protein, respectively) PER was 2.6 (casein standard = 2.5).
  • (19) Their drinking water was deionized, fortified with 5 essential trace metals, and either 0, 1, 10, or 100 ppm barium was added.
  • (20) With the aid of satelliting, most of the strains were adapted to grow on a human Mycoplasma growth agar consisting of brain-heart infusion agar fortified with 20% human blood, yeast extract, and arginine.