resistance

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
resistance/rɪˈzɪstəns/

▶noun

• 1 the action of resisting.

• 2 armed or violent opposition.

• 3 (also resistance movement) a secret organization resisting political authority.

  ■ (the Resistance) the underground movement formed in France during the Second World War to fight the German occupying forces and the Vichy government.

• 4 the impeding effect exerted by one material thing on another.

• 5 the ability not to be affected by something.

  ■ Medicine & Biology lack of sensitivity to a drug, insecticide, etc., especially as a result of continued exposure or genetic change.

• 6 the degree to which a material or device opposes the passage of an electric current, causing energy dissipation.

  ■ a resistor.

– phrases
the line (or path) of least resistance the easiest course of action.

– derivatives
resistant adjective.