PROVOKE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Provoke

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/prəvˈoʊk/ Listen

verb

Provoke v. t. (past & past part. provoked; pres. part. provoking) 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." "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." "Such acts Of contumacy will provoke the Highest To make death in us live." "Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust?" "To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provokes in his own soul."

Synonyms: To irritate; arouse; stir up; awake; excite; incite; anger. See Irritate.

Provoke v. i.

To cause provocation or anger.

To appeal. Note: (A Latinism) (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Provoke'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Provoke" Quotes from Famous Books

... to go up the steps, then turned and walked away. To go in would provoke inquiry as to why he was not at the wedding. He took out his watch. It was twenty minutes of the hour set for the ceremony. He had intended to go, but—Well, he had forgotten, and was glad of it. He ...

— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher

... the islanders had trooped no petty throng, To witness that strange fight, who by a vain And miserable superstition stung, Esteemed such holy deed a work profane; And said that this would be another wrong To Proteus, and provoke his ire again; Make him his herds pour forth upon the strand, And with the whole old warfare ...

— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... mutineers who had alarmed Carthage by their violence. The best proof of good intention on the part of the latter was that it was he, the eternal adversary of the Suffet Hanno, who was sent to them. They must not credit the people with the folly of desiring to provoke brave men, nor with ingratitude enough not to recognise their services; and Gisco began to pay the soldiers, commencing with the Libyans. As they had declared that the lists were untruthful, he made no use ...

— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) and let us consider one another to provoke unto love, and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ...

— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... and it is said she "provoked her sore, to make her fret" (1 Sam. 1: 6). There are some people who delight in twitting others about some fault or physical defect, or because of lack of ability or something of that sort. If they see that this causes us to fret, it only increases their desire to provoke us. Then again, some people like to make sport of others, and tease them; and if they see that some one can not hear it well, if it frets him and worries him, this only increases their delight. I have ...

— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

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