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From Anglo-Norman redunder, Middle French redonder, and their source, Latin rēdundō, from + undō(surge), from unda(a wave).



redound (third-person singular simple present redounds, present participle redounding, simple past and past participle redounded)

  1. (obsolete, intransitive) To swell up (of water, waves etc.); to overflow, to surge (of bodily fluids). [14th-19th c.]
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.10:
      For every dram of hony therein found / A pound of gall doth over it redound […].
  2. (intransitive) To contribute to an advantage or disadvantage for someone or something. [from 15th c.]
    • Rogers
      The honour done to our religion ultimately redounds to God, the author of it.
    • 1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, Bantam Books, p. 448:
      The fact that in one case the advance redounds to private advantage and in the other, theoretically, to the public good, does not alter the core assumptions common to both.
  3. (intransitive) To contribute to the honour, shame etc. of a person or organisation. [from 15th c.]
    • 2008, Peter Preston, The Observer, 2 Mar 2008:
      One thing about the 'John McCain-didn't-sleep-with-a-lobbyist' story redounds to the New York Times' credit.
  4. (intransitive) To reverberate, to echo. [from 15th c.]
  5. (transitive) To reflect (honour, shame etc.) to or onto someone. [from 15th c.]
  6. (intransitive) To attach, come back, accrue to someone; to reflect back on or upon someone (of honour, shame etc.). [from 16th c.]
    His infamous behaviour only redounded back upon him when he was caught.
  7. (intransitive) To arise from or out of something. [from 16th c.]
  8. To roll back, as a wave or flood; to be sent or driven back.
    • Milton
      The evil, soon driven back, redounded as a flood on those from whom it sprung.


Related terms[edit]