different between bulwark vs fastness

English

Etymology

From Middle English bulwerk, from Middle Dutch bolwerk, bolwerc and Middle Low German bolwerk, equivalent to bole (“tree trunk”) +? work. Cognate with German Bollwerk, Danish bolværk, Dutch bolwerk. Doublet of boulevard (from French boulevard, from Dutch); cognate with Portuguese and Spanish baluarte and Italian baluardo.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?l.w?k/
• (US) enPR: bo?ol'w?rk, bo?ol'wôrk, IPA^(key): /?b?l.w?k/, /?b?l.w??k/

Noun

bulwark (plural bulwarks)

1. A defensive wall or rampart.
2. A defense or safeguard.

   • The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, […] the floating bulwark of the island.

3. A breakwater.
4. (nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
5. (figuratively) Any means of defence or security.

Translations

Verb

bulwark (third-person singular simple present bulwarks, present participle bulwarking, simple past and past participle bulwarked)

1. (transitive) To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
2. (transitive) To provide protection of defense for something.

English

Etymology

From Middle English fastnesse, festnesse (“firmness; certainty; stronghold; firmament”), from Old English fæstnes, fæstnis (“firmness; stronghold; firmament”), equivalent to fast +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?fæstn?s/, [?fæsn?s]
• (trap–bath split) IPA^(key): /?f??stn?s/, [?f??sn?s]

Noun

fastness (countable and uncountable, plural fastnesses)

1. A secure or fortified place; a stronghold, a fortress.
   • 1611, John Speed, The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans, London, Book 9, Chapter 9, p. 528,^[1]

     [...] if the Welsh compelled by famine ventred out of their strengthes or fastnesses, in or about Snowdon, the Garrison Souldiers of Gannocke were ready to intercept and kill them [...]

   • 1803, John Browne Cutting, “A Succinct History of Jamaica” in Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, p. xxxviii,^[2]

     [...] the slaves that yet remained in the fastnesses of Jamaica, attached to the Spanish, and hostile to the English settlers, continued to be troublesome, and at times formidable.
2. The state of being fast.
   1. Firmness, security.
   2. Rapidity, swiftness.
3. The ability of a dye to withstand fading.

Derived terms

• colorfastness
• colour fastness, colourfastness

Translations

References

• “fastness”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.