rebound

rebound, reverberate, recoil, resile, repercuss are comparable when they mean to spring back to an original position or shape.

Rebound basically implies a springing back after a collision or impact

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the ball readily rebounds when thrown against a wall

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In extended use the term implies a springing back from one extreme to another or from an abnormal condition to one that is normal

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literature is rebounding again from the scientific-classical pole to the poetic-romantic one— Edmund Wilson

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Reverberate is used chiefly of rays or waves, most typically of sound waves, which are forced back in the manner of an echo or series of echoes or are repelled or reflected from side to side or from one surface to another

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the evening gun thundered from the fortress, and was reverberated from the heights— Hawthorne

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but it may be extended to other matters giving a similar effect

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presents even simple subjects with a perceptiveness that makes them reverberate in the mind— Babette Deutsch

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Recoil (see also RECOIL 1) often implies a springing back after being stretched, strained, or depressed

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a spring recoiling after pressure has been removed

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or a sudden or violent backward movement

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a gun recoils when it is fired

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Sometimes it carries the suggestion of a return to the source or point of origin in the manner of a boomerang

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that evidence missed the mark at which it was aimed, and recoiled on him from whom it proceeded— Macaulay

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But recoil often implies a springing back in the sense of being forced back by or as if by a blow; it then may connote a retreat, a receding, or a reeling

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ten paces huge he back recoiled— Milton

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as deep recoiling surges foam below— Burns

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commentators recoiled from the spectacle as if it were too loathsome for remark— S. L. A. Marshall

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Resile, much less common than its corresponding adjective resilient, like recoil may imply a springing back (as of an elastic body) into the original state or position, but in practice it is largely restricted to an essentially legal use in which it implies a withdrawing from something to which one has previously committed oneself

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the suggestion which he had brought . . . meant that India was seeking to resile from its solemn international commitments— Pakistan Affairs

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Repercuss, also much less common than its corresponding noun repercussion and adjective repercussive, is a close synonym of reverberate and rebound, for it implies the return of something moving ahead with great force or, in extended use, set in motion or operation, back to or toward the starting point. However it distinctively suggests repulsion upon impact and a return with undiminished force, or sometimes even greater force, and often, when persons are involved, with a marked effect upon the ones who initiated the action

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the waves dashed against the rocks and repercussed with a great roar

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{

sickness produces an abnormally sensitive emotional state . . . and in many cases the emotional state repercusses ... on the organic disease— Peabody

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Analogous words: bound, *skip, ricochet