redeeming feature

Idioms  

1. A good quality or aspect that makes up for other drawbacks, as in The house isn't very attractive, but the garden is the redeeming feature. This idiom, first recorded in 1827, uses redeem in the sense of “compensate.”

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

redeeming feature

They offered not one redeeming feature as they slumped again, the visiting fans suffering as they made their way home from a freezing west London night.

From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2025

Its only redeeming feature is that the words are so tiny I can’t read them.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 31, 2020

We end with the debate’s redeeming feature, which surprisingly had to do with God.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2016

Our critic says its main redeeming feature is Denzel Washington, “a great star, which means that he has that ineluctable what’s-it for selling the goods no matter what their sell-by date.”

From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2016

She wanted sympathy upon this point; it was a very insignificant point, the Bride’s personal beauty; but as yet it seemed to be the only redeeming feature in Alfred’s unfortunate marriage.

From A Bride from the Bush by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung