Noah Webster
Repel
REPEL', verb transitive [Latin repello; re and pello, to drive.]
1. 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.
2. To resist; to oppose; as, to repel an argument.
REPEL', verb intransitive
1. To act with force in opposition to force impressed. Electricity sometimes attracts and sometimes repels.
2. In medicine, to check an afflux to a part of the body.