STRENGTHEN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Strengthen

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/strˈɛŋθən/ Listen

verb

Strengthen v. t. (past & past part. strengthened; pres. part. strengthening)

To make strong or stronger; to add strength to; as, to strengthen a limb, a bridge, an army; to strengthen an obligation; to strengthen authority. "Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,... With powerful policy strengthen themselves."

To animate; to encourage; to fix in resolution. "Charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him."

Synonyms: To invigorate; confirm; establish; fortify; animate; encourage.

Strengthen v. i. To grow strong or stronger. "The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength."

See images of 'Strengthen'

Etymology of 'Strengthen'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Strengthen" Quotes from Famous Books

... reading and writing, and every town of a hundred householders a grammar-school, with a teacher qualified to fit youths for the university. This school law was enacted likewise in the other Puritan colonies. While its object was to strengthen the hold of religion, as expounded by the Puritan ministry, upon the people, its general effect was to spread intelligence along with learning, and to break down the barriers of intolerance. It is a significant fact, however, ...

— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... exchange for luxuries, or to reserve the whole to hasten their discharge. Thus it was possible to obtain a ticket-of-leave in one, two, or two and a-half years, from a sentence of seven, ten years, or life. He deprecated those lengthened punishments, which deprive men of the years of youth, and strengthen and ripen every evil propensity ...

— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... revise when you have got it together, and if you can strengthen it—do. I mention all the objections that occur to me as I go on, not because you can obviate them (except in the case of the prison-paper), but because if I make a point of doing so always you will feel and judge the more readily both ...

— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... most likely. If so, he never explained the fact to me or even to my mother. She told me once that he did not suspect that I had missed God's election until I was between five and six years old. I suppose that about that age I began to strengthen his cruel fear by my antipathy to the kirk services and my real and unfortunate inability to learn the Shorter Catechism. This was a natural short-coming. I could neither spell or pronounce the words I was told to learn and to memorise them was ...

— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... that already he deemed the prophecy that had been given him was coming true, and spoke many good and loving words to me to strengthen my thoughts of ...

— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

More quotes...