repulsive

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French repulsif (“that repels or resists”) (modern répulsif), recorded from about 1400, and partly borrowed from Medieval Latin repulsīvus (“repellent”),^[2][3][4] found in post-classical Latin from the 9th century and in Chauliac in 1363.^[2] The Latin adjective is formed from repulsus, the past participle of repellō (“to drive back”), with the suffix -īvus.^[2][3][4] The verb is formed from Latin re- (“back”) + pellō (“to drive”).^[5] The Shorter Oxford also allows a formation from the verb repulse with the suffix -ive,^[6] as Johnson and Dictionary.com do.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In medicine, able to drive back or disperse humours, a repercussive: about 1425, in the English translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie, as adjective and noun.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense, having the power to repel or drive back, is recorded from about 1574,^[2] and Johnson (1755) knew only this meaning, "driving off; having the power to beat back".^[7] In 1598, in Chapman, the word was first used of people who repel others by coldness or refusal,^[2][3] a sense Merriam-Webster dates to 1594;^[9] Jane Austen wrote that a reserve "may be a little repulsive".^[9] From 1709 it was a term of physics for forces that push bodies apart.^[2] The modern sense, arousing strong distaste or disgust, appears only in 1791,^[2] in Etymonline's dating by 1816;^[3] French had taken the same step in the 18th century.^[2] The medical sense was obsolete by the mid 19th century.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – medicine, able to drive back humours (obsolete by 1853).^[2][3]
• c. 1574 – able to repel or resist.^[2]
• 1598 – repelling people by coldness or denial.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1594.^[9]
• 1709 – physics, producing repulsion.^[2]
• 1791 – disgusting, loathsome.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1816.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing strong distaste or disgust; loathsome: a repulsive smell from the drains.^[10][2][9]
2. Cold and forbidding in manner, tending to drive others away.^[10][9][2]
3. (physics) Of a force, tending to push bodies apart; producing repulsion.^[10][9][2]
4. Able to repel or drive back.^[9][2]

Word family

• repulsively
• repulsiveness
• unrepulsive

Related words

• repel
• repulse
• repulsion
• repellent
• pulse
• compulsive
• propulsive

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins