redeem
Definitions
General English
- verb to make something better than it seemed to be at first
Banking
Economics
- verb to buy back an item given as security on a loan
- verb to exchange something such as a security or voucher for money
Law
Origin & History of “redeem”
The -deem is not the same word as deem (which is related to doom). In fact, there never was a true -deem in it. It comes from Latin emere ‘take, buy’ (source also of English example, prompt, etc), which when combined with the prefix re- ‘again, back’ had a d grafted into it to produce redimere ‘buy back’. English probably acquired it via French rédimer.
