How to Use repulsive in a Sentence

repulsive

adjective
  • Magnets have a repulsive effect on each other.
  • The greater the overlap, the greater the repulsive spring force.
    Rhett Allain, Wired, 17 Dec. 2021
  • What Trump forces did to them, in the wake of the 2020 election, was repulsive.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 28 July 2023
  • In this world both saints & lovers look grotesque and repulsive.
    Stephen Mirarchi, National Review, 28 Dec. 2019
  • The repulsive fog of exhaust fumes mingles with the scent of grass in the humid night air.
    Han Kang, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2023
  • The very notion of such a pursuit seems repulsive to some.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 15 June 2022
  • The point of the zombie genre is that humans are strange, repulsive, and ridiculous.
    Noah Berlatsky, The Verge, 5 Dec. 2018
  • This means the attractive force between the pen and the electron is greater than the repulsive force between the pen and the proton.
    Rhett Allain, Wired, 28 Jan. 2022
  • The physician must have at his command a certain ready wit, as dourness is repulsive both to the healthy and the sick.
    Gavin Francis, The New York Review of Books, 23 May 2019
  • Jadin notes with a laugh that once the mighty, high-cost lobster was deemed so repulsive in the West that it was fed to prisoners.
    Mark Kennedy, chicagotribune.com, 19 May 2021
  • What is repulsive in one part of the world, in another is simply lunch.
    The Editors, Outside Online, 4 June 2019
  • Nothing kills the vibe like a heavy application; even the best scent can be repulsive in too large a dose.
    Adam Hurly, Robb Report, 25 May 2023
  • Rivest shared on Twitter that her loved ones also found the man's actions to be repulsive.
    NBC News, 26 Sep. 2019
  • That comment is one of the most repulsive comments made by a President of the United States in decades.
    Karly Matthews, Seventeen, 17 Aug. 2017
  • In Britain, his power has only grown since the 2011 phone-hacking scandal that brought down his repulsive tabloid News of the World.
    Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 2 Apr. 2021
  • The same agenda that’s so repulsive to the campaigners has drawn praise from President Trump and much of his base.
    Umair Irfan, Vox, 30 Mar. 2018
  • One tip: Place citrus peels in the soil, since felines find their scent fairly repulsive.
    Courtney Vinopal, Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2023
  • Both Lewandowski and Trump maligned Michelle in the most repulsive fashion.
    Prachi Gupta, Cosmopolitan, 14 Mar. 2016
  • But fat, scruffy, with repulsive skin with that foul-mouthed, female persona.
    Anahid Nersessian, The New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2024
  • Calle’s work is always a bit emotionally repulsive, too close to the bone, too deeply felt.
    Josephine Livingstone, New Republic, 11 May 2017
  • And at this point, after a few minutes of observation, the words that come to mind are no longer repulsive and nightmare, but small and dear and friend.
    Alex Mar, WIRED, 17 Oct. 2017
  • Even those who found his words repulsive were mesmerized by him.
    Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Harwell sings along as Shrek showers in mud, brushes his teeth with a bug and kills a fish with his farts — a gleeful outsider, and a repulsive one at that.
    Ismail Muhammad, New York Times, 22 Dec. 2023
  • Neither is Jabba the Hutt, who’s repulsive in every way.
    Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 12 Dec. 2019
  • Rent-seeking is lucrative, which is why there is so much of it, even when its pedigree is repulsive.
    George F. Will, The Denver Post, 17 June 2017
  • But the same repulsive scents are magnets for skunks, raccoons, rats, flies, and a lot of other wild critters, and even for a few neighborhood pets.
    Rita Pelczar, Better Homes & Gardens, 17 June 2021
  • But people who are strong and in power find weakness repulsive.
    Kevin Wilson, Time, 28 Oct. 2019
  • The Frog brothers must prevent a vampire from unleashing an army of his repulsive ilk.
    Ed Stockly, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2021
  • To me, these details were both intriguing and repulsive.
    Okwiri Oduor, Harper’s Magazine , 22 June 2022
  • Not being entirely straightforward about one issue does not mean my son is guilty of the repulsive allegations and the grave charges leveled against him.
    Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 7 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'repulsive.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: