to drive back; to force to return; to check advance; as, to repel an enemy or an assailant. Hippomedon repell’d the hostile tide. And virtue may repel, though not invade.

To resist; to oppose; as, to repel an argument.

To act with force in opposition to force impressed. Electricity sometimes attracts and sometimes repels.

In medicine, to check an afflux to a part of the body.