Definitions

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

  • adjective Causing repugnance or aversion; disgusting. synonym: offensive.
  • adjective Tending to repel or drive off.
  • adjective Physics Of or relating to repulsion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Acting so as to repel or drive away; exercising repulsion; repelling.
  • Serving or tending to deter or forbid approach or familiarity; repellent; forbidding: grossly or coarsely offensive to taste or feeling; causing intense aversion with disgust.
  • Synonyms Offensive, disgusting, sickening, revolting, shocking.

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

  • adjective Serving, or able, to repulse; repellent.
  • adjective Cold; forbidding; offensive.

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

  • adjective tending to rouse aversion or to repulse
  • adjective physics having the capacity to repel

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

  • adjective so extremely ugly as to be terrifying
  • adjective possessing the ability to repel
  • adjective offensive to the mind

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

repulse + -ive

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