REPUGNANCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does repugnance mean? 

• REPUGNANCE (noun)
  The noun REPUGNANCE has 2 senses:

1. intense aversion

2. the relation between propositions that cannot both be true at the same time

  Familiarity information: REPUGNANCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REPUGNANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Intense aversion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

horror; repugnance; repulsion; revulsion

Hypernyms ("repugnance" is a kind of...):

disgust (strong feelings of dislike)

Derivation:

repugnant (offensive to the mind)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The relation between propositions that cannot both be true at the same time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas

Synonyms:

incompatibility; inconsistency; mutual exclusiveness; repugnance

Hypernyms ("repugnance" is a kind of...):

contradictoriness (the relation that exists when opposites cannot coexist)

Derivation:

repugn (to make the subject of dispute, contention, or litigation)

 Context examples 

He must be gone within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt, to lessen his repugnance.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Mercedes looked at them imploringly, untold repugnance at sight of pain written in her pretty face.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task which was enjoined me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Overcoming a strong repugnance, I tore open his shirt at the neck, and there, sure enough, hanging to a bit of tarry string, which I cut with his own gully, we found the key.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He could not help regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in rather a severe tone, “I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have been welcome instead of inspiring such violent repugnance.”

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)