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🤢 Strong dislike 🧲 Pushing apart 🛡️ Driving back
repulsion

repulsion

3 6.4
A force that pushes objects away from each other
  • noun
  • /rɪˈpʌlʃən/
  • Specialized
translation icon : repulsión
  • This means this combination has the smallest possible electric repulsion, and it's the easiest case to make nuclear fusion work.
  • electrostatic repulsion
  • Coulomb repulsion
  • force of repulsion

But there's the repulsion between the two nuclei.

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Examples

  • But what happens is that force of repulsion is felt through the exchange of a photon, and that exchange pushes them apart.

    The Royal Institution

  • If you used the strong force to overcome electromagnetic repulsion between protons, you'd also be on the road to easy proton-proton fusion at room temperature.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • The second is the side connected with repulsion, which is not so obvious in the solar system.

    Blog text (3)

  • And as a consequence of that electric repulsion of two similar charges, it's quite hard to make fusion reactions take place.

  • Exotic matter would produce a gravitational repulsion, rather than attraction.

    Academic text (1996)

  • You need to have a hardcore repulsion between molecules.

  • Because of mutual repulsion, the system progressively relaxes to the least possible energy state by reducing potential and kinetic energy.

    Academic text (1996)

  • The magnets also confined the subatomic particles, focusing them despite the mutual repulsion of their positive electrical charges.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The Fe-Fe repulsion prevents much closer spacing, while a wider spacing would be leakier.

    Academic text (1993)

  • The repulsion between the two magnets made them push away from each other.

Synonyms

repulsive force
vsrepulsion
  • Specialized
1 6.7

A push that makes things move away from each other

describes force that acts only when objects are very near each other
repellence
vsrepulsion
  • Specialized
7.5

A force that pushes objects away from each other, like between magnets

focuses on an actual force moving bodies apart rather than general property

Antonyms

attraction
  • Specialized
96 2.8

A force that pulls objects toward each other, like gravity or magnets

How Repulsive

repulsion
  • Specialized
3 6.4
repellence
  • Specialized
7.5

Surface Forms

repulsion singular
repulsions plural

Morphology

repulsion = repulse (semi-transparent) = repulse + ion

The physics sense ('force that makes objects move away') is a nominalization of the same root but is somewhat technical; the basic idea of 'pushing away' is inferable but the term's force-aspect may require domain knowledge.

Etymology

Repulsion comes from the Latin repellere ('to push back') and is related to words like repel and propel, which have the idea 'to push'. So in science, repulsion is the force that makes objects move away from each other.