Other forms: repelled, repelling, repels
To repel is to drive something away — attackers, insects, water. A fabric that repels water, a spray that repels midges, a force that repelled the attack.
There is a second sense about feeling: something that repels you disgusts you. The idea repels me. That use is formal and strong, and the adjective repellent covers both — insect repellent is a product, a repellent smell is disgusting. In physics, like charges repel and opposite charges attract, and that pair is the standard way the word is first met in school. Note the double l in repelled and repelling, and the single one in repel.
1verbrepelTo drive something away or keep it off.
“The coating repels water for about a year.”
synonyms: drive away, fend off, ward off
2verbfeelTo make somebody feel disgust.
“The whole idea repelled him.”
3verbphysicsIn physics, to push away rather than attract.
“Two north poles repel each other.”
repel is a way of driving away.
Also accepted in games: drive away
Latin repellere is re-, back, plus pellere, to drive — the same verb behind expel, propel, compel and pulse. Everything in the family is about driving, and repel is driving something back the way it came.
Proto-Indo-European
*pel- (beat)
Latin
repellere — to drive back
Old French
*repeller
Middle English
repellen
English, today
repel
Built from
From Middle English repellen, a borrowing from Old French repeller, from Latin repellere (“to drive back”), from re- (“back”) + pellere (“to drive”). a doublet of repeal.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA