Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use repulse in a sentence

16 example sentences · verb, noun

Repulse means to repel or drive back. Example: “The smell of rotting food repulsed me.”

Examples of repulse by meaning

verbTo repel or drive back.

  • to repulse an assault; to repulse the enemy
  • If we fail to repulse the enemy within the gates--unemployment, poverty, disorganized agriculture and the like--from whence may we expect the united strength and clear purpose to repulse any outside force?1939 December 5, J. W. Studebaker, Democracy Shall Not Be Plowed Under, page 9

verbTo reject or rebuff.

  • to repulse a suitor

verbTo cause revulsion in; to repel.

  • The smell of rotting food repulsed me.
  • I find your conduct reprehensible, disgusting, and it repulses me, the way a mongoose repulses a snake.

More sentences with repulse

  • Repulse combed the torpedo wakes and knocked down two of the attackers.2013, Steve Backer, British Battlecruisers of the Second World War, page 10. From the entry comb
  • Enemy attempts to land on the south shore of Tungting Lake again were repulsed.[1943 May 11 [1943 May 10], en, “CHINESE STILL FIRM ON TUNGTING SHORES; Japanese Said to Have Made No Decisive Gains in Day”, in The New…. From the entry Dongting
  • But the lout looked only to his market, and was not easily repulsed.1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, “The Dissolution”, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 6. From the entry lout
  • Kellie said she felt deeply repulsed by the image.2026 July 16, Nicholas Muhoro, “Inside the 2004 Brianna Maitland Case: One of Vermont’s Most Haunting Mysteries”, in Skip Boring, archived…. From the entry trooper
  • Because redpillers are usually normies or Chadlites while incels are ugly low-value males that women feel innately repulsed by.2018, Rebecca Karlén, anonymous quotee, “Incels: En kartläggning av diskursen på forumet incels.is”, in Uppsala University, archived from…. From the entry Chadlite
  • His whiskey-laced breath told Misty that he’d been drinking, and his food-stained longjohn top and filthy breeches repulsed her.1995, Sonya Birmingham, Frost Flower, New York, N.Y.: Leisure Books, →ISBN, page 165. From the entry longjohn
  • But the lout looked only to his market, and was not easily repulsed. ¶ "He's there, I tell you," he persisted.1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 01. From the entry look to
  • My co-workers and especially my wife were repulsed by the “CrackBerry,” and my compulsive grasping at it, like Gollum with his ring.2023 July 7, Ian Bogost, “What Did People Do Before Smartphones?”, in The Atlantic, Washington, D.C., archived from the original on 07 Jul…. From the entry crackberry
  • His mother is repulsed by his uncle; he has heard her whisper it in the kitchen, "I skeeves him, Charley." She is Italian.1993, Pete Dexter, Brotherly Love, page 16. From the entry skeeve
  • On the 2nd of June a small force, zeribaed under Captain Malcolm McNeill, was attacked by the mullah’s followers but repulsed after desperate fighting.1911, Somaliland, 11th edition, volume 25, Encyclopædia Britannica, page 382. From the entry zeriba
  • When Herman Melvilled visited , he was fascinated yet repulsed by the 'contagion' of American Christian millenarianism – 'this preposterous Jewmania', he called it, 'half-melancholy, half-farcical'.2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 406. From the entry millenarianism

Meaning of repulse

  1. verb To repel or drive back.
  2. verb To reject or rebuff.
  3. verb To cause revulsion in; to repel.

Full definition of repulse

Questions about repulse in a sentence

How do you use repulse in a sentence?
Repulse is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The smell of rotting food repulsed me.”
What is a short sentence with repulse?
“to repulse a suitor”
What does repulse mean?
Repulse means to repel or drive back.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: repulse (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use repulse in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/repulse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.