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repulse.

To repel or drive back.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɹɪˈpʌls/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation, Scotland/ɹɪˈpɐls/Australia/ɹəˈpɐls/New-Zealand/ɾɪˈpəls/India
  1. To repel or drive back.

    transitive
    to repulse an assault; to repulse the enemy
  2. To reject or rebuff.

    transitive
    to repulse a suitor
  3. To cause revulsion in; to repel.

    transitive
    The smell of rotting food repulsed me.
    I find your conduct reprehensible, disgusting, and it repulses me, the way a mongoose repulses a snake.
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English repulsen, a learned borrowing from Latin repulsus, from repellō. For spelling, as in pulse, the -e (on -lse) is so the end is pronounced /ls/, rather than /lz/ as in pulls, and does not change the vowel (‘u’). Compare else, false, convulse.

noun/ɹɪˈpʌls/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation, Scotland/ɹɪˈpɐls/Australia/ɹəˈpɐls/New-Zealand/ɾɪˈpəls/India
  1. The act of repulsing or the state of being repulsed.

  2. Refusal, rejection or repulsion.

Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English repulse, borrowed from Old French repulse, from Latin repulsa (petītiō), from repellō.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.