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repulsion

repulsion

1 6.7
An action that drives attackers back
  • noun
  • /rɪˈpʌlʃən/
translation icon : repulsión
  • The repulsion of the invading forces was celebrated as a major victory for the town.

Examples

  • During the skirmish, their swift repulsion of enemy troops secured their defense.

  • Hundreds of years of training in the defeat and repulsion of social climbers had been distilled into their genes.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • As stated above, the function of this parameter is to adjust a certain ratio between gravity and antigravity (i.e., between attraction and repulsion) in a certain system.

    Blog text (3)
  • The soldiers prepared for the fierce repulsion of the enemy's attack during the battle.

Synonyms

repulse
vsrepulsion
1 7.9

An act of driving attackers back from a place

refers to a successful defensive stand rather than a single act

Antonyms

1.4

A violent action that harms people or damages things

159 7.4

A large attack by an army to gain control

How Forceful

rout
12 7.2
repulsion
1 6.7
defeat
275 2.5
skirmish
22 6.4

Surface Forms

repulsion singular
repulsions plural

Morphology

repulsion = repulse (transparent) = repulse + ion

This sense is a straightforward nominalization meaning 'the act of driving back', which a learner can derive from the verb.

Etymology

Repulsion comes from the Latin repellere ('to push back'), the same idea behind the English word repel. That is why in a military sense a repulsion is the act of forcing an attack away or driving an enemy back.