provoke Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb call forth (emotions, feelings, and responses)
    raise; fire; enkindle; elicit; arouse; evoke; kindle.
    • arouse pity
    • raise a smile
    • evoke sympathy
  2. verb evoke or provoke to appear or occur
    evoke; call forth; kick up.
    • Her behavior provoked a quarrel between the couple
  3. verb provide the needed stimulus for
    stimulate.
  4. verb annoy continually or chronically
    beset; chivy; chevy; chevvy; harass; hassle; chivvy; harry; plague; molest.
    • He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked
    • This man harasses his female co-workers

WordNet


Pro*voke" transitive verb
Etymology
F. provoquer, L. provocare to call forth; pro forth + vocare to call, fr. vox, vocis, voice, cry, call. See Voice.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Provoked ; present participle & verbal noun Provoking
Definitions
  1. To call forth; to call into being or action; esp., to incense to action, a faculty or passion, as love, hate, or ambition; hence, commonly, to incite, as a person, to action by a challenge, by taunts, or by defiance; to exasperate; to irritate; to offend intolerably; to cause to retaliate.
    Obey his voice, provoke him not. Ex. xxiii. 21.
    Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. Eph. vi. 4.
    Such acts Of contumacy will provoke the Highest To make death in us live. Milton.
    Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust? Gray.
    To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provokes in his own soul. J. Burroughs.
    Syn. -- To irritate; arouse; stir up; awake; excite; incite; anger. See Irritate.
Pro*voke" intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To cause provocation or anger.
  2. To appeal. A Latinism Obs. Dryden.

Webster 1913