2. To offer resistance to; to fight against: The troops were making efforts to repel an invasion by the terrorists.
In the high adventure story that Stacie was reading, the hero had to rappel down the cliff to warn his friends in time to repel the attack by their enemy.
2. To ward something off, or to keep something away: Judy used a solvent to repel mosquitoes
The raincoat that Mike wore repeled any kind of precipitation, like water.
3. To ward off or to force back a military attack or invasion: In the novel, it was possible for the army to repel the enemy, with superior forces.
4. To fail to mix or to blend with something else: Jerry could not mix the oil and water because
they repelled each other.
5. To exert a force that tends to push something away or apart: Magnets can both repel and attract one another.
6. To reject or to refuse to accept something or somebody: Everyone was repelled by the sight of the behavior of the drunken man and woman.
7. Etymology: "to drive away, to remove" came from Old French repeller, from Latin repellere, "to drive back"; from re-, "back" + pellere, "to drive, to strike".
The meaning "to affect (a person) with distaste or aversion" is from 1817; while, the adjective "repellent" is recorded from 1643, from Latin repellentem, preposition of repellere; originally a reference to medicines (that reduced tumors); the meanings of "distasteful, disagreeable" were first recorded in 1797. The noun sense of "a substance that repels insects" was first recorded in 1908.