repugn \rih-PYOON\ verb: to contend against : oppose Examples: Over 450 students signed the petition repugning the school boards decision to fire the popular teacher. Still to come, bad blood between Bloom and Bieber. Will we ever know what happened when the movie star repugns the pop star? — Lester Holt, NBC News Transcripts, August 2, 2014 Did you know? Repugn is a word that was relatively common in English in the 16th and 17th centuries. These days, however, English speakers are more likely to be familiar with one of its close relatives, namely, the adjective repugnant, which formerly meant hostile but today most commonly means exciting distaste or aversion. The Latin root for both of these words is pugnare, meaning to fight. Other English derivatives from this root are pugnacious, meaning belligerent, and impugn, meaning to assail with words or arguments. Even pungent is a relative of pugnare. Therefore, don’t try to repugn, or impugn for that matter, the influence of pugnare on our language—lest you appear pugnacious!
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 11:42:32 +0000
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