redeem oneself

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

redeem oneself (third-person singular simple present redeems oneself, present participle redeeming oneself, simple past and past participle redeemed oneself)

1. (idiomatic) To resolve, or make up for, one's previous folly.

   I know in the past I've been a giant twat, but all the hard work I've done since then is to redeem myself. I just want to do something useful, and I'm sorry if I cock it up sometimes.

   • 2026 January 17, Simon Stone, Shamoon Hafez, “Manchester United 2-0 Manchester City”, in BBC‎^[1]:

     Behind them, goalkeeper Senne Lammens redeemed himself on the one occasion he made a serious mistake, turning away a goal-bound Max Alleyne header from a corner the Belgian had needlessly given away.

See also

• second chance