recoil

Although the resulting recoil force is extremely small, it acts continuously over millions of years.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026

Many judges recoil from that conclusion, and the constitutional inquiry becomes personal.

From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2026

Kieran Trippier was the only player to visibly recoil before the substitute grabbed the ball and beckoned his dazed team-mates forward in an attempt to quickly get the game back under way.

From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026

They also boost earnings per share and help propel stock prices, which is why many investors prize them and would recoil at the notion of government interference.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 19, 2026

There was such a Mrs. Weasley-ish glare on her face that Harry was surprised Fred didn’t recoil.

From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling

Having fashioned a creature from dead body parts, the scientist recoils from the result, which appears to him to be a monster of “unparalleled barbarity,” and abandons his construction.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026

He practices a politics of inspiration, and the Surge recoils at politicians who try to inspire us.

From Slate ● Apr. 5, 2025

Although Watkins has been the center of attention since middle school, when Gottlieb started hearing whispers of an eighth-grade phenom on the recruiting circuit, Watkins recoils when asked about her success.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2023

But it is perhaps an ominous sign that she physically recoils after saying that.

From New York Times ● Apr. 16, 2023

According to conventional nuclear physics, this was extraordinary, even bizarre: nuclei of different weights would be expected to emit disintegration products of widely variable energies, with the heavy elements producing the more energetic recoils.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

I’ve always recoiled at having dinner on a first date.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 23, 2026

Washington, by contrast, recoiled at the very notion of monarchy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026

Amid the rebuke, brands have recoiled back within the antiseptic neutrality where they’re most comfortable: irrelevant celebrity cameos, cheap millennial nostalgia, unmoored wistfulness for simpler days.

From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2026

By that point, Layan had forgotten her completely, Omama says, and recoiled when they met.

From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2025

I recoiled, slipping down in the space between the backseat and the front.

From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken

But when the pressure heightens and matters boil over between the quartet, Wilde carefully examines the resulting eruption instead of recoiling.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

But he proves a skilled physical comic, tussling with his boots or recoiling from a kick in the shins from Lucky.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2025

De Guzman, who also curated an art show called “Roots of Cool” about trees, noted that Los Angeles seems to actually shrink during the hotter months, as if recoiling from the sun.

From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2025

“Swim in it? Me?” said retiree Patrice Desrousses, 64, recoiling ever so slightly as he paused in his promenade beside the storied waterway.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2024

Rose hissed like a recoiling snake, her hand reaching to cover RiRi’s eyes in anticipation of Miig dancing an electric jig, sizzling like a piece of frying meat.

From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline