repulse
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
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to drive back or ward off (an attacking force); repel; rebuff
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to reject with coldness or discourtesy
she repulsed his advances
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to produce a feeling of aversion or distaste
noun
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the act or an instance of driving back or warding off; rebuff
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a cold discourteous rejection or refusal
Usage
Some people think that the use of repulse in sentences such as he was repulsed by what he saw is incorrect and that the correct word is repel
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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repulsesimple
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repulsessimple
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have repulsedperfect
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has repulsedperfect
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am repulsingprogressive
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are repulsingprogressive
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is repulsingprogressive
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have been repulsingperfect progressive
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has been repulsingperfect progressive
Past
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repulsedsimple
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had repulsedperfect
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was repulsingprogressive
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were repulsingprogressive
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had been repulsingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of repulse
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin repulsus, past participle of repellere to repel
Explanation
To repulse something is to repel it or drive it back. When you repulse your sister, you disgust her. When you repulse the enemy in battle or someone in conversation, you force them back or make them turn away. Repulse is related to the word repel, and they mean similar things: to repulse an advance — romantic or warring — is to repel, or fend off, its advance. To repulse someone by being disgusting is to be repellent. You could repulse a person's attempts at conversation if you repulse him by picking your nose. Repulse is now most frequently used in the gross-out sense, but Jane Austin often had her characters repulse each others’ attempts at conversation or civility.
Vocabulary lists containing repulse
Lesson 1
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I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
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"The Crisis," Vocabulary from the essay
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Aristotle recognized that we take pleasure in viewing fictional representations of tragedies, suffering and mutilated corpses that would repulse us if we confronted them in reality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026
His malignity and psychopathology seem to attract followers when these same characteristics should repulse people.
From Salon ● Mar. 4, 2024
Troops from South Korea, the United States and other countries under the direction of the United Nations battle to repulse the invasion.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 12, 2023
Eastern Roman armies had to repulse threats and maintain the borders, but they did not face the overwhelming odds of their western Roman counterparts.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020
However, it is easy to repulse the Pogrebin with simple hexes or Stupefying Charms.
From "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" by J.K. Rowling
"Actually, the idea of wearing it repulses me, I don't even take my old ones out of my drawer. It's a shame, because the shirt itself is gorgeous."
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2022
“Beth, the thought of cutting up a turkey repulses me.”
From Salon ● Nov. 27, 2019
But this very unnaturalness terrifies and repulses others.
From Nature ● Jul. 24, 2018
In that sense, the show is the same way as this prisoner making art from his gut and intestines, because the show repulses people and offends people who say, “Oh, you shouldn’t lie.”
From Slate ● Jul. 19, 2018
But while Thomas’s touch now repulses me, I feel no revulsion toward Day.
From "Legend" by Marie Lu
Emma Little-Pengelly said that people who worked alongside Donaldson over the past 20 years are "floored, shocked and utterly repulsed".
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
Gen. James Bartholomees told the troops after they were deemed to have repulsed the invaders from the beach.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
But he’s more fascinated than repulsed by the city.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
There were those repulsed by the kind of language parodied in these books, and those who forced everyone else to speak this way.
From Slate ● Jan. 5, 2025
I stood at the mouth of the room and stared at it, fascinated and repulsed.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
This ion is pushed out of the crystal by the repulsing forces of the nearby Li+ ions.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2023
Staufenbiel was at his best when it came to illuminating the emotional energies attracting or repulsing these characters.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 14, 2023
A key condition for success in repulsing the Chinese attack is that Taiwan’s government and military must successfully resist and not surrender.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 9, 2023
Speaking on the phone from Kyiv, Mr Zhorin said the roughly 1,000 Ukrainian defenders left in the works have been fighting in "360 degrees for more than one month", repulsing attacks from all angles.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2022
And we were careful not to touch, so careful it felt like some repulsing magnetic field had settled between us.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
