Definition of Provoke

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Provoke

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.

To cause provocation or anger.

To appeal. [A Latinism]

Related Definitions:

Action, Ambition, Anger, Appeal, As, Being, By, Call, Cause, Challenge, Commonly, Defiance, Exasperate, Faculty, Forth, Hate, Hence, Incense, Incite, Into, Irritate, Latinism, Love, Offend, Or, Passion, Person, Provocation, Retaliate, To

Provoke Quotations

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
Henry David Thoreau

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.
Elie Wiesel

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage

And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others.
Thomas More

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.
George Henry Lewes

Herr Schroder has conducted two electoral campaigns, and he is doing it again now, by not telling people what is really necessary. He keeps avoiding the difficult and uncomfortable issues, those that imply changes and therefore provoke discussions.
Angela Merkel

However, the combination of civil resistance, of large-scale mass activities and strikes, with a certain degree of revolutionary violence, could provoke a crisis in the enemy's camp that would ultimately lead to essential changes.
Joe Slovo

What did our nation ever do to provoke these madly vicious enemies? What is seen as injustice in one place is seen as just requital in the other.
Mary Douglas

And it says something about our level of disassociation, that we can provoke these wars abroad but we're not allowed to see people get killed as a result.
Alex Cox

Since governmental quotas expand bureaucratic power, provoke a backlash and are unfair to individuals, we need to find a better way to increase minority opportunities.
Marvin Olasky

Provoke Translations

provoke in Danish is udfordre
provoke in Dutch is aanstoken, ophitsen, irriteren
provoke in French is chiffonent, chiffoner, irriter, provoquons
provoke in German is provoziere, provozieren, herausfordern
provoke in Italian is sfidare, esacerbare, cagionare
provoke in Portuguese is provoque
provoke in Spanish is retar, pinchar, provocar

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