"recoiling" in the verb sense

1. flinch, squinch, funk, cringe, shrink, wince, recoil, quail

draw back, as with fear or pain

"she flinched when they showed the slaughtering of the calf"

2. backfire, backlash, recoil

come back to the originator of an action with an undesired effect

"Your comments may backfire and cause you a lot of trouble"

"the political movie backlashed on the Democrats"

3. bounce, resile, take a hop, spring, bound, rebound, recoil, reverberate, ricochet

spring back spring away from an impact

"The rubber ball bounced"

"These particles do not resile but they unite after they collide"

4. kick back, recoil, kick

spring back, as from a forceful thrust

"The gun kicked back into my shoulder"

Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)

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