1. To cause someone to feel intense aversion, disgust, or revulsion: The ragged old man repelled the other people waiting for the bus because he had an awful odor and swore a lot.
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.