Word.ws English Dictionary

redpoint

redpoint verb: to free-climb (a route), while lead climbing, after having practiced the route beforehand.

Verb

redpoint (third-person singular simple present redpoints, present participle redpointing, simple past and past participle redpointed)

  1. (transitive) To free-climb (a route), while lead climbing, after having practiced the route beforehand.

Forms of redpoint

third-person singular presentredpoints
present participleredpointing
past participleredpointed
pastredpointed

Origin of redpoint

From red + point, as a calque of German Rotpunkt, coined by Kurt Albert in the mid-1970s at Frankenjura. He would paint a red X on a fixed pin that he could avoid using for a foothold or handhold.

Questions about redpoint

What does redpoint mean?
Redpoint means to free-climb (a route), while lead climbing, after having practiced the route beforehand.
What part of speech is redpoint?
Redpoint is a verb.
What is the past tense of redpoint?
The past tense of redpoint is redpointed.

Words near redpoint in the dictionary

  1. Redpaths
  2. redpill
  3. redpilled
  4. redpilling
  5. redpills
  6. redpoint
  7. redpointed
  8. redpointing
  9. redpoints
  10. redpole
  11. redpoles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: redpoint (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “redpoint.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/redpoint. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.