Noun

(en noun)

Mental or emotional strength that enables courage in the face of adversity.

* 1612 , , King Henry VIII , act 3, sc. 2:

. . . I am able now, methinks,

Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,

To endure more miseries.

* , ch. 1:

I shall soon have need for all my fortitude , as I am on the point of separation from my own daughter.

* 1906 , , The Mirror of the Sea , ch. 21:

She may be saved by your efforts, by your resource and fortitude bearing up against the heavy weight of guilt and failure.

* 2012 Jan. 30, , " The Strategist," Time :

Mitt Romney . . . charges that Obama is an appeaser who apologizes for America, lacks fortitude and is "tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced."

(archaic) Physical strength.

* 1604 , , Othello , act 1, sc. 3:

DUKE OF VENICE: The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for

Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best

known to you.

Noun

(en noun)

An imaginary rock or mineral of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness.

* {{quote-book

, year= 1582 , year_published= , author= , by= , title= The first booke of the Christian exercise, appertayning to resolution , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=gvbik25DcCgC&pg=PT144 , original= , chapter= 8 , section = , isbn= , edition= , publisher= G. Flinton , location= , editor= , volume= , page= , passage= This then is and alwayes hath ben the fashion of Worldlinges, & reprobate persons, to harden their hartes as an adamant stone, against anye thinge that shalbe tolde the for amendement of their lives, and for the savinge of their soules. }}

An embodiment of impregnable hardness.

* 1956 , , The City and the Stars , p 34

Unprotected matter, however adamant , would have been ground to dust ages ago.

A magnet; a lodestone.

* 1594–96 , :

You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant :

But yet you draw not iron, for all my heart

Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,

And I shall have no power to follow you.