Something or someone that’s “redoubtable” (rih-DOW-tuh-bul) – from the French for “to dread” – is formidable, arousing fear or worthy of respect.
Example (as used by Nicholas Delbanco in The Lost Suitcase): “At the head of the table, as committee chair, sat the redoubtable Howard Mumford Jones – a teacher famed even at Harvard for his fierce authority, his wide-ranging erudition, and his intolerant exacting preciseness.”
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