repulsion

Borrowed from Middle French répulsion, from Late Latin repulsio, repulsionem, from Latin repulsus.

repulsion (countable and uncountable, plural repulsions)

1. The act of repelling or the condition of being repelled.
2. An extreme dislike of something, or hostility to something.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 12, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.

3. (physics) The repulsive force acting between bodies of the same electric charge or magnetic polarity.

• attraction

• repel
• repulse
• repulsive
• repellent

• neuropils