Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use repulsive in a sentence

28 example sentences · adjective

Repulsive means tending to rouse aversion or to repulse; disgusting. Example: “An article is not obscene simply because it is repulsive or filthy.”

Examples of repulsive by meaning

adjectiveTending to rouse aversion or to repulse; disgusting.

  • a repulsive smell

More sentences with repulsive

  • An article is not obscene simply because it is repulsive or filthy.2016, Hugh Jones, Christopher Benson, “Defamation and Other Risks”, in Publishing Law, 5th edition, Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.…. From the entry obscene
  • You repulsive vermin, come down here so I can bash in your head!"2015, Marilee Jackson, chapter 37, in Midnight Runner, Springville, Utah: Sweetwater Books, →ISBN. From the entry gardyloo
  • Not a repulsive scroungy cat like Jenny's, but an elegant Abyssinian.2011, L. J. Smith, The Forbidden Game, →ISBN. From the entry catbath
  • We endure our abuses of orphanotrophism even when they are repulsive to the heathen Chinee.1910 September 10, Bayard Holmes, “Orphanotrophism”, in The Lancet-clinic, volume 104, number 11, page 238. From the entry orphanotrophism
  • We likely find repulsive such saints as St.2009, Stuart Rosenbaum, Pragmatism and the Reflective Life, →ISBN, page 89. From the entry femophobia
  • It was hot and gooey and repulsive.2002, Piers Anthony, Pornucopia. From the entry goosh
  • Connors was eccentric (and kind of repulsive) in lots of other ways, too, none of which are germane to this article.1997, David Foster Wallace, “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff About Choice, Freedom…. From the entry germane
  • He portrays the duality of a land of crisp green lawns where homicide is acceptable but homosexuality repulsive.1991 May 4, Mary Dowd, “Risky Business”, in Gay Community News, page 7. From the entry judgmentalism
  • She meets sirens and sea serpents and hidebehinds, wicked kings and repulsive recluses, capitalist magicians and seven-league boots and magic pomegranates.1984, John Wood Campbell, editor, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. From the entry hidebehind
  • Perhaps her looks were not considered downright repulsive.1979, Peter Drucker, The Man Who Invented Kissinger, John Wiley, published 1997, page 143. From the entry belle laide
  • They are neither lovable nor loving because they are innately poisonous or repulsive, like a pit adder or a skunk.1974, Edgar Berman, The politician primeval: from the amoeba to the White House. From the entry pit adder
  • The feature that struck me most forcibly was the strange hue of their skin, a repulsive, unhealthy pallor, a seeming bloodlessness.1933, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 9, in Lost on Venus. From the entry bloodlessness
  • An oil lamp burned upon a high, old-fashioned mantel, casting its dim rays over a dozen repulsive figures.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 27. From the entry passion
  • The oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive public figure.2018 May 9, George F. Will, “Trump is no longer the worst person in government”, in The Washington Post, archived from the original on 11…. From the entry oleaginous
  • A lot of emetophobes are particularly terrified of vomiting in public – many cite a fear of losing control and of others finding them repulsive.2015 January 26, Katie Grant, “How I beat my fear of vomiting: ‘Eating frightens me’”, in The Independent. From the entry emetophobe
  • For many, the experience of Internet shock sites began with goatse, a notoriously repulsive image that is considered the king of shock sites.2011, Cole Stryker, Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web, page 100. From the entry goatse
  • How repulsive, I thought, it was to watch the rice, meat, fish and vegetables meshed by the relentless grinding of his teeth?1993, K.S. Maniam [pseudonym; Subramaniam Krishnan], In a Far Country (Skoob Pacifica; 2003), London: Skoob Books Publishing, →ISBN, page 61. From the entry wolve down
  • But the distinction between the person, who can potentially be won over, and the behavior, which is repulsive, is an important one.1988 December 11, John D'Emilio, “Enemies, Anger, and Militance”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 22, page 5. From the entry tactically
  • Is he to be taken as glorifying the cruel tyrant, the “beast of prey”, or did he have some less repulsive ideal?1973, Philippa Foot, “"Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values"”, in Robert C. Solomon, Garden City, New York, editors, Nietzsche: A…. From the entry beast of prey
  • Yet a woman’s “yes” would have bound him to that other life forever, and made the thought of this savage existence repulsive.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 121. From the entry yes
  • I knew about the English Civil War, Cavaliers (wrong but romantic) versus Roundheads (right but repulsive), but I didn't think that was what he was talking about.2013, Ellen Datlow, Hauntings, →ISBN, page 155. From the entry cavalier
  • Ellis may have intended this in order to highlight Patrick’s increasing zombiefication as the murders progress and the most repulsive of acts are described in an affectless monotone.1992, Elizabeth Young, “The beast in the jungle, the figure in the carpet: Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho”, in Elizabeth Young…. From the entry zombiefication
  • What it always is, however, is repulsive almost beyond words, a sickening, monstrously contorted afterbirth of a blob, complete with linguinilike prying tentacles, which it uses to reproduce itself.1982, California, volume 7, numbers 5–8, page 99. From the entry linguinilike
  • The degrading and repulsive part, the unbibliophilic acts in the British Museum and other libraries, are not part of the assessment of the importance of An Enquiry.1981, Antiquarian Book Monthly Review. From the entry unbibliophilic
  • Pliny describes the ‘Gorillae’ mentioned by Hanno as ‘Gorgades’, by which term he refers, in the common parlance of those days, to their repulsive appearance and terrifying faces.1970 [1966], Charles Johnson, transl., Willingly to School: How Animals are Taught, New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, translation of…. From the entry Gorillai
  • And it is ruining my social life. face keeps breaking out with pimples and I know I look repulsive, so how can I ever expect to have boy friends?1958 March 26, “Acne Causes Social Woes”, in Herald-Journal, Spartanburg, SC. From the entry social life
  • Professor Gran's peculiar insight into the literary mind and its curious, often repulsive, peculiarities is singularly interesting, and casts an entirely new light upon the much bepondered Rousseau.1911, The Book Buyer, page 221. From the entry beponder

Meaning of repulsive

  1. adjective Tending to rouse aversion or to repulse; disgusting.
  2. adjective Having the capacity to repel.
  3. adjective Cold; reserved; forbidding.

Full definition of repulsive

Questions about repulsive in a sentence

How do you use repulsive in a sentence?
Repulsive is used as an adjective. For example: “An article is not obscene simply because it is repulsive or filthy.”
What is a short sentence with repulsive?
“a repulsive smell”
What does repulsive mean?
Repulsive means tending to rouse aversion or to repulse; disgusting.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: repulsive (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 repulsive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/repulsive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.