Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Extreme dislike or aversion.
  • noun Logic The relationship of contradictory terms; inconsistency.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Opposition; conflict; resistance, in a physical sense.
  • noun Mental opposition or antagonism; positive disinclination (to do or suffer something); in a general sense, aversion.
  • noun Contradictory opposition; in logic, disagreement; inconsistency; contradiction; the relation of two propositions one of which must be true and the other false; the relation of two characters such that every individual must possess the one and lack the other.
  • noun Synonyms Hatred, Dislike, etc. (see antipathy), backwardness, disinclination. See list under aversion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state or condition of being repugnant; opposition; contrariety; especially, a strong instinctive antagonism; aversion; reluctance; unwillingness, as of mind, passions, principles, qualities, and the like.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun extreme aversion, repulsion
  • noun contradiction, inconsistency, incompatibility, incongruity; an instance of such.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the relation between propositions that cannot both be true at the same time
  • noun intense aversion

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And now that repugnance is very nearly annihilated how strange it would be to say we forbid you under severe legal restrictions from using this precaution which has been so long, so diffusively, so earnestly and so effectually recommended.

    Letter 111 2009

  • They remain current because they are potent illustrations of where racism leads; their ugliness, their repugnance, is manifest.

    Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist? 2008

  • Yet the point where empathy and understanding end and interest wanes, giving way to outright repugnance, is reached when Eros throws himself violently into the arms of Thanatos as if to merge with him, when love seeks to find its highest and purest form, indeed its fulfilment, in death.

    GreenCine Daily: Weekend shorts. 2006

  • It was indeed Julien, whom she had seen approach the house at the very instant when she was only separated from the abyss by that last tremor of animal repugnance, which is found even in suicide of the most ardent kind.

    The French Immortals Series — Complete Various

  • Worse than the sting of her repugnance was the thought that

    Mr. Waddington of Wyck May Sinclair 1904

  • It was indeed Julien, whom she had seen approach the house at the very instant when she was only separated from the abyss by that last tremor of animal repugnance, which is found even in suicide of the most ardent kind.

    Cosmopolis — Complete Paul Bourget 1893

  • And I can still recall my repugnance when I was told that a couple of bored clerks in Dwyer's of Washington Street had come in early the morning of his execution and enacted a satirical mime of his last minutes

    Independent.ie - Frontpage RSS Feed 2009

  • We will hear the old arguments about "repugnance" and the rest of us may again be potential victims of this socially destructive, anti-science, proto-fascist attitude that is certainly more dangerous to the public than any cluster of cells in a Petri dish.

    Dan Agin: Stem Cells Redux: There Will Be Blood 2009

  • Here he stopped a moment to reconnoitre the gate through which he had to pass; and seeing, even at that distance, many soldiers on guard, his imagination also being rather overstrained, (one must pity him; for he had had enough to unsettle it), he felt a kind of repugnance at encountering the passage.

    Chapter XVI 1909

  • In fact, now he looked closely at him for the first time, he felt a kind of repugnance to him, mingled with a strange feeling of doubt whether a man or a woman stood before him.

    Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women 1905

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