Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RE-SIST'ANCE, n.

1. The act of resisting; opposition. Resistance is passive, as that of a fixed body which interrupts the passage of a moving body; or active, as in the exertion of force to stop, repel or defeat progress or designs.
2. The quality of not yielding to force or external impression; that power of a body which acts in opposition to the impulse or pressure of another, or which prevents the effect of another power; as, the resistance of a ball which receives the force of another; the resistance of wood to a cutting instrument; the resistance of air to the motion of a cannon-ball, or of water to the motion of a ship.