expel

Etymology

Late Middle English: from Latin expellere, from ex- (“out”) +‎ pellere (“to drive”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪkˈspɛl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛl
• Hyphenation: ex‧pel

Verb

expel (third-person singular simple present expels, present participle expelling, simple past and past participle expelled)

1. (transitive) To eject.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To fire (a bullet, arrow etc.).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     But to the ground the idle quarrell fell: / Then he another and another did expell.

3. (transitive) To remove from membership.

   Synonyms: drive away, drive out, force out

   He was expelled from school multiple times for disruptive behaviour.

   • 2011 December 14, Angelique Chrisafis, “Rachida Dati accuses French PM of sexism and elitism”, in Guardian‎:

     She was Nicolas Sarkozy's pin-up for diversity, the first Muslim woman with north African parents to hold a major French government post. But Rachida Dati has now turned on her own party elite with such ferocity that some have suggested she should be expelled from the president's ruling party.

4. (transitive) To deport.