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Based on its spelling, you might think that redoubt shares its origin with words such as doubt and redoubtable, both of which come from the Latin verb dubitare, meaning "to be in doubt." But that's not the case. Redoubt actually comes to us (via the French word redoute and the Italian word ridotto) from a different Latin verb—reducere, meaning "to lead back," the same root that gives us reduce. How that b ended up in redoubt is a lingering question, but some etymologists have posited that the word might have been conflated with another redoubt—a now-archaic verb meaning "to regard with awe, dismay, or dread" which, unlike its twin, does indubitably come from dubitare.
Examples of redoubt in a Sentence
Eliza McGraw, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 June 2025
Salt Lake City, the state capital, is a famously liberal redoubt in a sea of red.
—David Mark, The Washington Examiner, 30 May 2025
The worst threat facing the latter is the relocation of a small minority of people from the northern cities to the Southern states which are the redoubt of Lindbergh’s movement.
—David Renton
may 12, Literary Hub, 12 May 2025
The United States announced late last year that its military had roughly doubled the number of its troops on the ground in Syria, to 2,000, and its many strikes on Islamic State redoubts in the Syrian desert in the last few months appear to have tamped down the immediate threat.
—Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for redoubt
Cite this Entry
“Redoubt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redoubt. Accessed 2 Jul. 2025.
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