noun

• 1A place that has been fortified so as to protect it against attack.

  ‘their mountain strongholds fell to enemy attack’

  More example sentences

  • ‘World War I saw the evolution of a new fortification setup combining field strongholds with fortresses.’
  • ‘At the same time opposition forces began building fortified strongholds in hard-to-access mountainous areas.’
  • ‘Iraqi strongholds and fortified areas were sealed off with a part of coalition forces.’
  • ‘In this mode you make a custom fighter, then you go through a tactical game of taking enemy strongholds to fortify your battlefield position.’
  • ‘He demonstrated the value of infantry strongholds, when they were properly supported, to inhibit enemy armoured thrusts.’
  • ‘He tried without success to attack the Frankish strongholds while the Crusader army was pinned down in Egypt.’
  • ‘The charter references to ‘fortress-work’ imply fortified strongholds rather than dykes.’
  • ‘By this time, they had gained control over all the bastions, strongholds and fortifications surrounding the city.’
  • ‘The government deployed additional military forces to attack terrorist strongholds.’
  • ‘The system of defense positions is built on a combination of strongholds, ambushes, fire pockets, and armor group positions.’
  • ‘Government troops recently violated a ceasefire, attacking a rebel stronghold in the north.’
  • ‘They appeared to drive the enemy from the capital within days and then mounted attacks on rebel strongholds elsewhere.’
  • ‘If Brocade is to protect its stronghold there, it too needs to offer an end-to-end solution.’
  • ‘The use of dummy strongholds and targets can minimize fire impact of an attacking enemy force 20 percent to 30 percent.’
  • ‘The face smiled wickedly, waved, and vanished in a swirl of proud bastions and fortified strongholds.’
  • ‘They were able to build a fortified town and a stronghold they called a vault in case of an assault.’
  • ‘It has been deployed to fill in for American combat troops required for the attack on the rebel stronghold.’
  • ‘We are taking the fight into the strongholds of the enemy, and we are dealing the enemy blow after blow, damaging it daily.’
  • ‘Cadeyrn was gone from the palace for days at a time, visiting forts along the coast and the strongholds of his warlords.’
  • ‘Successive English strongholds have fallen to outsiders.’

  Synonyms

  fortress, fort, castle, citadel, garrison, keep, tower, hold, donjon, bunker

  View synonyms

• 2A place where a particular cause or belief is strongly defended or upheld.

  ‘a Labour stronghold’

  More example sentences

  • ‘He has been to Democrat strongholds, Republican bastions and across the battleground states of the Midwest.’
  • ‘The middle and upper end of the market continues to be a stronghold of independent agencies such as Strutt & Parker and its peers.’
  • ‘They take in the Thornton & Allerton, and Clayton & Fairweather Green wards, both Tory strongholds in local elections.’
  • ‘It is why the pro-choice side is losing ground now outside its strongholds on the coasts.’
  • ‘No, there'll be no libelling their stronghold as the ‘land of rain’, true as it may be.’
  • ‘California has the undeserved reputation of being a liberal stronghold, a land of progressive new ideas.’
  • ‘Ganesh and Rohit hope to capitalise on their stronghold of creativity and use of actual sounds.’
  • ‘We will discover Nature's secret strongholds.’
  • ‘But Republicans also lost ground in some traditional strongholds.’
  • ‘His right wing PAN party lost legislative seats and governorships in places long considered PAN strongholds.’
  • ‘For reformers all along the rhetorical spectrum, red-light districts were the strongholds of organized vice.’
  • ‘Moreover, trade union strongholds in the public sector are further threatened by ongoing privatisation.’
  • ‘By invoking prohibitions in this way the nation seeks to establish universally acknowledged strongholds.’
  • ‘Both countries are Labour strongholds and the party would have expected to dominate under first-past-the-post electoral systems.’
  • ‘However, the party failed to progress beyond its regional strongholds even after it had reshaped itself into the Canadian Alliance.’
  • ‘Their strongholds lie in the cities in which many students, academics, civil servants and public employees live.’
  • ‘Traditional strongholds in western regions have also experienced big rises.’
  • ‘The contemporary music scene was the stronghold of disco and stadium rock, the two bland ends of a narrow spectrum.’
  • ‘The worst slums tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and the fanciest suburbs tend to be Republican strongholds.’

  Synonyms

  bastion, centre, refuge, hotbed

  View synonyms