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Recoil   /rikˈɔɪl/   Listen
noun
Recoil  n.  
1.
A starting or falling back; a rebound; a shrinking; as, the recoil of nature, or of the blood.
2.
The state or condition of having recoiled. "The recoil from formalism is skepticism."
3.
Specifically, the reaction or rebounding of a firearm when discharged.
Recoil dynamometer (Gunnery), an instrument for measuring the force of the recoil of a firearm.
Recoil escapement. See the Note under Escapement.



verb
Recoil  v. t.  To draw or go back. (Obs.)



Recoil  v. i.  (past & past part. recoiled; pres. part. recoiling)  
1.
To start, roll, bound, spring, or fall back; to take a reverse motion; to be driven or forced backward; to return. "Evil on itself shall back recoil." "The solemnity of her demeanor made it impossible... that we should recoil into our ordinary spirits."
2.
To draw back, as from anything repugnant, distressing, alarming, or the like; to shrink.
3.
To turn or go back; to withdraw one's self; to retire. (Obs.) "To your bowers recoil."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Recoil" Quotes from Famous Books



... certain passion, whereas justice is not about the passions; nor again is it a part of fortitude, because it belongs to fortitude to be persistent and aggressive, while it belongs to shamefacedness to recoil from something; nor lastly is it a part of temperance, since the latter is about desires, whereas shamefacedness is a kind of fear according as the Philosopher states (Ethic. iv, 9) and Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 15). Hence it follows ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... of capital and labour. A number of far subtler factors enter into the account—science, organisation, energy, credit, confidence, the spirit in which men set about their business. The one thing which would be certain to diminish that income, and to recoil on all of us, would be that war of classes which many people seem anxious to stir up. Nothing could be more fatal to prosperity, and to the fairest hopes of social progress, than if the great body of the upper and middle classes of the ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner

... their horses and horse equipments left with the quartermaster at the Sidney station, the battalion has been run to Chicago exactly as it came from the plains, and Chicago's "toughs," who would have hooted and jeered, perhaps, at sight of polished brasses and natty uniforms, recoil bewildered before this gang of silent and disciplined "jay-hawkers." Steadily, silently, ominously, the train rolls along. As it is rounding a curve several ugly-looking fellows are seen running at speed towards the switch-lever at the next street-crossing. Excitedly the railway man clutches ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... think, there is a man in that town in whose hand your good name and your freedom lie. If he but takes a fancy, he can drag you in the mud. You can count on no happiness, no security, without his consent. Remember, too, there is a woman with him who has smitten you in the face and made you recoil, who is perhaps even now laughing at you, who is the object of my deadly hatred, and during whose lifetime the door is closed to me into the world I wish to enter. So long as that woman lives the sun does not shine for me: I ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... words he stepped back towards the lower end of the cell. Wyat instantly sprang after him, but before he could reach him a flash of fire caused him to recoil, and to his horror and amazement, he beheld the rock open, and yield a passage ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth


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