Fortify vs Edify - What's the difference?
fortify | edify |
To increase the defenses of; to strengthen and secure by military works; to render defensible against an attack by hostile forces.
To impart strength or vigor to.
* Sir Walter Scott
*
To increase the effectiveness of, as by additional ingredients.
* 1979 , Kiplinger's Personal Finance (volume 33, number 7, July 1979, page 47)
To build, construct.
* , III.i:
To instruct or improve morally or intellectually.
* Gibbon
* 1813 , The Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, Vol. VI , page 455
As verbs the difference between fortify and edify
is that fortify is to increase the defenses of; to strengthen and secure by military works; to render defensible against an attack by hostile forces while edify is to build, construct.fortify
English
Verb
(en-verb)- Pride came to the aid of fancy, and both combined to fortify his resolution.
- Compare the nutrition information label of a regular ready-to-eat fortified cereal with that of a presweetened brand and you'll note that, although the sweetened one's sugar content is higher, the fortification is virtually identical.
edify
English
Alternative forms
* (archaic)Verb
(en-verb)- That Castle was most goodly edifyde , / And plaste for pleasure nigh that forrest syde
- It does not appear probable that our dispute [about miracles] would either edify or enlighten the public.
- That they ought to edify one another by maintaining and promoting the knowledge of truth.
- (Francis Bacon)