redoubt
pronunciation
How to pronounce redoubt in British English:
UK [rɪˈdaʊt]
How to pronounce redoubt in American English:
US [rɪˈdaʊt]
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- Noun:
- a forbidding stronghold
Word Origin
- redoubt
- redoubt: [17] Redoubt ‘stronghold’ has no etymological connection with doubt (although redoubtable [14] does – it derives from the French ancestor of doubt, which originally meant ‘fear’, and so historically denotes ‘to be feared’). It was borrowed from French redoute, which goes back via obsolete Italian ridotta to medieval Latin reductus ‘hidden place, refuge’, a noun use of the past participle of Latin redūcere ‘bring back, withdraw’ (source of English reduce). The b was inserted under the influence of redoubtable.=> reduce
- redoubt (n.)
- also redout, "small, enclosed military work," c. 1600, from French redoute (17c.), from Italian ridotto, earlier ridotta, "place of retreat," from Medieval Latin reductus "place of refuge, retreat," noun use of past participle of reducere "to lead or bring back" (see reduce). The -b- was added by influence of unrelated English redoubt (v.) "to dread, fear" (see redoubtable). As an adjective, Latin reductus meant "withdrawn, retired; remote, distant."
Example
- 1. At present the internet poses a puny threat to this commercial redoubt .
- 2. They may be forced out of their redoubt in the city 's bakara market .
- 3. Ok cupid 's office occupies a single floor of an office building a block away from the port authority bus terminal that old redoubt of pimps .
- 4. For more than half an hour our high-speed chase wound through the streets of burma 's moldering former capital past the carcasses of victorian-era government buildings abandoned when the junta mysteriously moved the seat of power to a remote redoubt five years ago .