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repeal

US/ɹəˈpiːl/
verbC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,330 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: repealed, repealing, repeals

To repeal is to cancel a law formally. Repeal the act, repeal the ban, calls to repeal it.

Only the body that made a law can repeal it, which is why repeal is a political fight rather than a legal one. A repealed law stops applying from a stated date and does not undo what happened before.

Definitions of repeal

  1. 1verbrepealTo cancel a law formally.C1

    “The new government promised to repeal the unpopular tax.”

repeal is a cancelling.

Where it comes from

Old French rapeler means to call back, from re- plus apeler, to call.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *pel- (beat)

  2. Latin

    repellō — drive or thrust back

  3. Old French

    rapeler — to call back, call in, call after, revoke

  4. Anglo-Norman

    repeler

  5. English, today

    repeal

Built from

  • pellō · Latin — push or strike

From Anglo-Norman repeler, from Old French rapeler (“to call back, call in, call after, revoke”), from Latin repellō (“drive or thrust back”), from re- and pellō (“push or strike”). a doublet of repel.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

repeal in the wild

  • On December 13, 2022, DOMA was officially repealed by the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act.

    Don't ask, don't tell

  • The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide prohibition on alcohol.

    Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution

  • Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

    Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution

  • Economic historians see the repeal of the Corn Laws as a decisive shift towards free trade in Britain.

    Corn Laws

  • A repeal (O.F. rapel, modern rappel, from rapeler, rappeler, revoke, re and appeler, appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law.

    Repeal

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the pellō family

pulseappeal

repeal — used about once every 20,553 pages · #13,330 · point at the bar for the others