irredenta means any region whose inhabitants are ethnically related to those of another state. It carries an Arena rating of 1374, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, irredenta ranks #1,041 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #1,357 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,956 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #3,134 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
Why “irredenta” is a great word
A region whose inhabitants are ethnically or historically linked to a neighboring nation, which therefore asserts a political claim upon it. From Italian (Italia) irredenta, meaning "(Italy) unredeemed," from irredento ("unredeemed"), from in- ("not") + redento, past participle of redimere ("to redeem"). First used in English circa 1910–1914. Unlike an "enclave," which is simply a territory encircled by another state, or a "colony," a distant possession ruled from afar, an irredenta is a contiguous wound on a map, a fracture defined by blood and memory. It is a map drawn with bloodlines instead of ink, a folk song that carries a border in its chorus, and a village that watches its own reflection in the barbed wire—the geography of longing made political, and politics made painfully personal.
Etymology
From Italian irredenta (“unredeemed”).
noun
- Any region whose inhabitants are ethnically related to those of another state
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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