Redunder

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Having an effect that brings credit or discredit to someone ; an archaic sense meaning to overflow or surge over the edges of something
2. To bring benefit or harm back upon a person or thing ; a rare, old-fashioned meaning of spilling over or flowing beyond a limit
3. To react back on someone so that they gain or suffer from it ; an obsolete usage describing liquid or matter pouring over its bounds

Etymology: In its original Latin form, "redundare" meant to overflow or surge back, like a wave. The English spelling "redunder" was an older variant of "redound," which came into English through Old French from that Latin verb. Its earliest uses were literal, describing liquid flowing over or back, and the figurative senses developed later. The verb's root, "unda," is the Latin word for "wave." Figurative uses followed: something that "redounds" to someone's credit or discredit flows back onto them, which is the sense still found today. "Redundant," which shares the same Latin source, kept the image of overflow and came to mean excess or superfluous, so the two English words took different paths from one root. "Redound" survives in the figurative sense, while the "redunder" spelling has fallen out of use.