Word.ws English Dictionary

reredemain

reredemain noun: a backward stroke of the hand.

Noun

reredemain (plural reredemains)

  1. (archaic) A backward stroke of the hand.
    • But all ſuch plagues, calamities and troubles (vvhich I feared and ſuſpected) might have chanced on me if I had taken the rule and regiment of the reale, I ſhall vvith a reredemaine ſo make them rebound to our common enemie that calleth himſelfe King, […]c. 1513–1518 (date written), Thomas More, “The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Reigne of Richard the Third. The Second Yeere of His Raigne.”, in The Historie of the Pitifvll Life, and Unfortunate...
    • And ſuch a blovv he lent him as he paſt, / Vpon his ſhoulders from the reredemaine, / That horſe and man vnto the ground vvere caſt, / VVhence neither of them roſe aliue againe: […]1591, [Ludovico Ariosto], “The XVI. Booke”, in Iohn Haringtõ [i.e., John Harington], transl., Orlando Furioso in English Heroical Verse, […], London: […] Richard Field […], →OCLC, stanza 50

Forms of reredemain

pluralreredemains

Origin of reredemain

From Middle English reremayne, reremayn, probably from Anglo-Norman reremein, variant of areremein, from arere (“back, backwards”) + main (“hand”).

Questions about reredemain

What does reredemain mean?
Reredemain means a backward stroke of the hand.
What part of speech is reredemain?
Reredemain is a noun.
What is the plural of reredemain?
The plural of reredemain is reredemains.

Words near reredemain in the dictionary

  1. rerecordings
  2. rerecords
  3. rerecovered
  4. rerecoveries
  5. rerecovery
  6. reredemain
  7. reredemains
  8. reredorse
  9. reredorses
  10. reredorter
  11. reredorters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reredemain (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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