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

If “Intrusion” has one redeeming feature, it’s Marshall-Green, whose performance as the husband with a dark secret has a crackling, tightly controlled intensity far more nuanced and persuasive than anything else in the film.

From New York Times • Sep. 22, 2021

The microphone is good One redeeming feature that the Earphones HD have is a high-quality microphone, which I was told during testing made me sound very clear and easily understandable.

From The Verge • Feb. 8, 2018

The news quickly trended on social media, with tributes saluting the "most famous tree in Australian education" as "majestic" and the university's "only redeeming feature".

From BBC • Oct. 31, 2016

USA Today's Claudia Puig says, "The only redeeming feature about 'The Gunman' is its exotic locations," which include the Congo, London, Barcelona and Gibraltar.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 20, 2015

The only good and redeeming feature about it was the utter absence of concealment and secrecy.

From Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline in Colonial New England by Adams, Charles Francis