hold off vs repulse

hold off

verb
  • To delay someone or something temporarily; to keep at bay. 

  • To delay commencing (an action until some specified time or event has passed). 

repulse

verb
  • To repel or drive back. 

  • To reject or rebuff. 

  • To cause revulsion in. 

noun
  • the act of repulsing or the state of being repulsed 

  • refusal, rejection or repulsion 

How often have the words hold off and repulse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )