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''redoubtable'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250716205401-00-⌔

redoubtable - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

redoubtable (comparative more redoubtable, superlative most redoubtable)

  • Especially of a person.
    • (in a positive sense, sometimes humorous) Eliciting respect; awe-inspiring, imposing.
      • ✤ Antonym: unredoubtable
      • ✤ The redoubtable New York Times has been called the “newspaper of record” of the United States.
      • ✤ VVhere ſuch an other Rodomont, ſo furious, ſo valorous, ſo redoutable?1
      • ✤ This new batch was sent to Leicester shed, and the redoubtable enginemen who had made such a reputation for themselves with the ex -G.C.R. Atlantics took to the “B17s” immediately, although, of course, they required quite different driving methods; […].2
      • ✤ Three local yobs have also joined, but they have not reckoned on a redoubtable Conductor and two local revenue protection officers who soon escort them off the train!3
    • (in a negative sense) Eliciting dread or fear; appalling, formidable.
      • ✤ Antonym: unredoubtable
      • ✤ [I]t pleaſed the grekes at that tyme to ſe yͤ body of Hector ſo trayned by Achilles ⸝ bycauſe he was wont to be ſo redoubtab[l]e to them⸝ […]4
      • ✤ Revers’d that ſpear, redoubtable in war,/Reclined that banner, erſt in fields unfurl’d,/That like a deathful meteor, gleam’d afar,/And brav’d the mighty monarchs of the world.— […]5
      • ✤ Inwardly she quaked, because she dreaded and admired the calm, self-contained character of her daughter Winnie, whose displeasure was made redoubtable by a diversity of dreadful silences.6

Noun

redoubtable (plural redoubtables) (often in the plural)

  • (in a positive sense, sometimes humorous) A person who elicits respect.
  • (in a negative sense) A person who elicits dread or fear; a formidable person.
    • ✤ Had you sought the Lady’s court yourself.—/Faced the redoubtables composing it,/Flattered this, threatened that man, bribed the other,—/Pleaded, by writ and word and deed, your cause,—/Conquered a footing inch by painful inch,—/And, after long years’ struggle, pounced at last/On her for prize,—the right life had been lived.7

Etymology

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English redoutable (“worthy of honour, venerable; frightening, terrible”),8 borrowed from Anglo-Norman redoutable and Middle French redoutable, redoubtable, from Old French redotable (modern French redoutable), from redoter (“to fear”) (whence Middle French redoubter, redouter, French redouter) + -able (suffix meaning ‘deserving of, worthy of’).9 Redoter is derived from re- (intensifying prefix) + doter (“to doubt; to fear”) (from Latin dubitō (“to doubt, be uncertain, waver in opinion”), probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡dwi- (“apart, asunder; two”) + ﹡bʰuH- (“to appear; to be; to become; to grow”), in the sense of being in two minds). By surface analysis, redoubt (“to dread”) +‎ -able.

The noun is derived from the adjective.9

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɹɪˈdaʊtəbl̩/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ɹəˈdaʊtəb(ə)l/, /ɹi-/, [-ɾə-]
  • Audio (General American); [ɹiˈdaʊɾəbəl]: 🔊
  • Hyphenation: re‧doubt‧a‧ble

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1593, Gabriell Haruey [i.e., Gabriel Harvey], Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame, London: […] Iohn Wolfe, →OCLC; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. […] (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), [London]: [s.n.], [1870], →OCLC, page 143: ↩

  2. 1941 September, O[swald] S[tevens] Nock, “The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley: Part V”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 396: ↩

  3. 2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New Trains, Old Trains, and Splendid Scenery”, in Rail, number 969, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 57: ↩

  4. 1530 July 28 (Gregorian calendar), Iohan Palsgraue [i.e., John Palsgrave], “Of the Verbe”, in Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse⸝ […], [London]: […] [Richard Pynson] fynnysshed by Iohan Haukyns, →OCLC, 3rd boke, folio cxxii, verso; reprinted Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, October 1972, →OCLC: ↩

  5. 1787 July 1 (date written), Robert Burns, “On the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume III (Posthumous Poems), Kilmarnock, Scotland: […] James M‘Kie, →OCLC, page 33: ↩

  6. 1906 January–October, Joseph Conrad, chapter VIII, in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Collection of British Authors; 3995), copyright edition, London: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1907, →OCLC, page 154: ↩

  7. 1844, Robert Browning, “Colombe’s Birthday. A Play.”, in Poems […], new edition, volume I, London: Chapman & Hall, […], published 1849, →OCLC, page 337: ↩

  8. “redǒutāble, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  9. “redoubtable, adj. and n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2025; “redoubtable, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩ ↩2

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