What's the difference between fortress and siege?

Fortress


Definition:

  • (n.) A fortified place; a large and permanent fortification, sometimes including a town; a fort; a castle; a stronghold; a place of defense or security.
  • (v. t.) To furnish with a fortress or with fortresses; to guard; to fortify.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The nuptials drew crowds of fans eager to witness the glitzy event, but they were kept far away from the heavily walled 16th-century fortress, which offers stunning views of Florence and surrounding Tuscan hills.
  • (2) In one way they were right to state the obvious – because Celtic were utter plod at the back – but hubris is best not displayed until you are beyond the reach of vengeance, as opposed to being about to walk into the fortress of the foe you have just mocked.
  • (3) Captain America kicking open the door of what looks like a European mountain fortress suggests the Nazi offshoot Hydra might be rearing its many ugly heads once again.
  • (4) After a stirring speech urging the ushering in of a new era of politics delivered to a packed convention hall in the Ghanaian capital Accra, Obama and his family toured the white-walled slave fortress to the sound of beating drums and chanting from a huge crowd outside.
  • (5) The fortress-like villages perched on rocky mountaintops we saw when we visited the north of the country are reminders that Yemen has constantly been invaded, or otherwise meddled with, by outsiders, from the Turks onwards.
  • (6) "Now we know our fortresses are secure," says their president, Tim Farron, a smirk of triumph in his voice, "we can collect 25 or 30 more Tory seats."
  • (7) Arab Iraq may still try to retake the province, but it is too focused on turning Baghdad and the Shia south into a fortress.
  • (8) However, much as MI6 hides in plain sight in their huge postmodernist fortress on the south bank of the Thames, at least one BAE building is very visible indeed.
  • (9) The original fortress was built in the 13th century but was raised to the ground by clashing clans and today is largely a 20th-century Grand Designs-style restoration thanks to Lieutenant Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap, who bought the ruin in 1911.
  • (10) Founded in 1088, the monastery’s fortress-like walls dominate the island’s skyline.
  • (11) So when Bill Gates pitched into the debate last week with a proposal that robots should be taxed , just like human workers are, you can imagine the splutters of outrage from the neoliberal fortresses of Silicon Valley.
  • (12) It's like a giant fortress in the middle of the city, taking up more than a traditional housing block (a whole street was annihilated for it).
  • (13) Canada has budgeted more than C$1bn (£644m) for security for the two summits, leading to accusations from activists that Toronto had been turned into a fortress.
  • (14) I further call on the international community to do everything in its power to protect the affected civilian population and safeguard the unique cultural heritage of Palmyra.” However, Isis has often cherished its destruction of cultural artefacts, releasing long, well-produced videos of their destruction of objects in the Mosul Museum and their detonation and bulldozing of much of the ancient fortress city of Hatra in Iraq.
  • (15) So the Super Fortresses were stripped to fly at 32,000 feet.
  • (16) The bank has repeatedly made it clear that a big loss – even of $6.2bn – cannot take down a bank with the size and strength of JP Morgan – a bank that has, in its own favorite phrase, "a fortress balance sheet".
  • (17) A sensationalist and scruple-free press seems eager to collude in their “noble lie”: that a Middle Eastern militia, thriving on the utter ineptitude of its local adversaries, poses an “existential risk” to an island fortress that saw off Napoleon and Hitler .
  • (18) In an interview with Fox News last Sunday , Trump accused Beijing of “building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn’t be doing”.
  • (19) Some 35% of Labour supporters voted yes on 18 September and three of the party’s traditional fortresses – Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and Dundee – were among the four local authorities out of 32 to back independence.
  • (20) Dun Totaig Distance 4 miles Start Letterfearn, Grid Ref: NG884238 Further information and maps Eilean Donan castle ( eileandonancastle.com )is one of the Highlands', indeed Scotland's, most iconic landmarks – a picture-perfect stone fortress surrounded by water (and often thronging with visitors).

Siege


Definition:

  • (n.) A seat; especially, a royal seat; a throne.
  • (n.) Hence, place or situation; seat.
  • (n.) Rank; grade; station; estimation.
  • (n.) Passage of excrements; stool; fecal matter.
  • (n.) The sitting of an army around or before a fortified place for the purpose of compelling the garrison to surrender; the surrounding or investing of a place by an army, and approaching it by passages and advanced works, which cover the besiegers from the enemy's fire. See the Note under Blockade.
  • (n.) Hence, a continued attempt to gain possession.
  • (n.) The floor of a glass-furnace.
  • (n.) A workman's bench.
  • (v. t.) To besiege; to beset.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Waco, Texas, will forever be known for the siege that began in February 1993 when agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided a compound owned by the Branch Davidian religious sect to investigate allegations of weapons hoarding.
  • (2) Monuc was not able to prevent the siege of Bukavu by rebel commanders in 2004 or to counter threats posed by the Rwandan FDLR militia or Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the Congolese People (CNDP) rebellion.
  • (3) Madaya: residents of besieged Syrian town say they are being starved to death Read more The Syrian regime and Hezbollah have put Madaya under siege for more than six months now as a response to the siege of the northern towns of Fua and Kefraya by anti-regime forces.
  • (4) Libraries were already under siege before the recession struck.
  • (5) As we settle down to chat in the deputy prime minister's ramshackle constituency base at 85 Netherfield Road, Sheffield, it is hard to dispel the impression that he's still a man under siege.
  • (6) Meanwhile Burnham is a blue Scouser, and nobody really hates Evertonians because they make sweets, and haven’t beaten anyone of note since Prince Rupert’s siege of 1644 .
  • (7) In 1993, at the Branch Davidian religious compound outside Waco, Texas, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms didn’t wait for the sect leader, David Koresh, to leave before attempting to arrest him and got into a gun battle that claimed 10 victims and led to a disastrous 51-day siege culminating in dozens more deaths.
  • (8) Madaya is an example of where over a million Syrians remain under siege with extremely limited medical evacuations today.” Speaking on behalf of the Syrian NGO alliance, Fadi Al-Dairi, the co-founder of Hand in Hand for Syria, told the Guardian: “We have been cooperating with OCHA, but we would add our points and OCHA Damascus would remove them.
  • (9) He didn't even mind the National Front turning up and sieg-heiling during gigs, which seems enormously sporting of him, given his raft of horrifying stories about experiencing racism in 60s and 70s Britain, and the scars he still bears as the result of a racially motivated 1980 knife attack.
  • (10) The noise was back and so was the siege, the ball thrown into the area, bodies flying.
  • (11) Sydney siege inquest: hostage pleaded with police to storm Lindt cafe urgently Read more They had taken cover after the final group to escape the siege had successfully fled in the early hours of 16 December 2014.
  • (12) The mood did not improve in 1980 when Iran's London embassy was taken over by Iraqi-backed gunmen before the siege was dramatically ended by the SAS hostage rescue.
  • (13) Killer Mike and Talib Kweli both appeared on news channels such as CNN and Fox to offer measured words on the situation (Killer Mike: “We have essentially gone from being communities that were policed by people from the communities to being communities that are policed by strangers, and that’s no longer a community, that’s an area that’s under siege”), while Common interrupted the MTV Video Music Awards to deliver a considered monologue on Ferguson , calling for a moment of silence “for Mike Brown and for peace in this country and in the world”.
  • (14) The second half came to resemble a siege, with Tottenham committing numbers forward and creating openings, and Newcastle struggling to escape their half.
  • (15) So they'll free a few hostages, but continue siege?
  • (16) Two years later, the offices of Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood were trashed after an all-night siege , with looters seizing door-labels of prominent Brotherhood leaders as trophies.
  • (17) Ohler’s book may well irritate some historians; he makes flippant remarks and uses chapter titles such as “Sieg High!” and “High Hitler”.
  • (18) The inquest heard at times harrowing detail about how gangs of local teenagers and children, some as young as 10, had the family "under siege".
  • (19) An orderly process of dealing with asylum claims at the earliest point would be infinitely preferable to desperate families laying siege to central European railway stations, risking their lives clinging on to vehicles at Calais or suffocating in vehicles transporting them across borders.
  • (20) He says incidents like that which left Omran Daqneesh stunned and bloodied are all too common in a city under siege The pictures of the injured five-year old Omran Daqneesh have shocked the world, but doctors in Aleppo see dozens of desperate children like him every week, often with worse injuries and many entirely beyond help.