"recoils" in the noun sense
1. recoil, kick
the backward jerk of a gun when it is fired
2. recoil, repercussion, rebound, backlash
a movement back from an impact
"recoils" 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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