Select the most appropriate synonym of the given word. Repulse

Correct — D. Repulse means to drive back or beat off — an attack, an advance, or a person making an approach.

Repel carries that same core sense of forcing something back or pushing it away.

The two are not merely close in meaning; they come from the same Latin verb repellere, re- plus pellere, to drive back. That shared root is what makes option (d) the synonym rather than a rough approximation.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Substitute — Substitute means to put one thing in the place of another. Replacement is a different action altogether, with nothing in it about driving something back.
• (b)
  Recover — Recover means to get back something lost, or to return to health. The re- prefix is the only thing it shares with repulse, and a prefix is not a meaning.
• (c)
  Reprove — Reprove means to rebuke or reprimand — to tell someone off in words. It is the option that sounds closest to repulse, but scolding is not driving back.

In the bare-word synonym item there is no sentence to lean on, so the root is the strongest evidence you have.

Every option here begins with re-, which means the prefix tells you nothing and the second half of each word has to decide. Repulse and repel both come from repellere; reprove comes from reprobare, to disapprove, and is a relative of reprobate.

When a list is built from lookalike prefixes, that is a signal to ignore the prefix entirely.

Key facts

• Repulse and repel both descend from Latin repellere, re- plus pellere, to drive.
• Repulse is used both of driving back an attack and of rebuffing a person's approach.
• Reprove means to rebuke in words and shares its root with reprobate.

Common traps

• Choosing Reprove because it is the option that sounds most like Repulse.
• Reading Repulse only as disgusting, then hunting for a word about disgust that is not on the list.

No directly related past PYQ was found.