provoke
provoke is a 7-letter English word with 7 senses as transitive verb, intransitive verb, and verb in the JumbleFix dictionary. One common meaning is: 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. Face value is 16 in Scrabble and 18 in Words With Friends. Use the entries below when you need a playable sense, a nearby word, or another arrangement of the same letters.
Definitions
- transitive verb. 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.
- intransitive verb. To cause provocation or anger.
- intransitive verb. To appeal. [A Latinism]
- verb. provide the needed stimulus for
- verb. evoke or provoke to appear or occur
"Her behavior provoked a quarrel between the couple"
- verb. call forth (emotions, feelings, and responses)
"arouse pity"
"raise a smile"
- verb. annoy continually or chronically
"He is known to harry his staff when he is overworked"
"This man harasses his female co-workers"
Synonyms
stimulate, evoke, arouse, elicit, enkindle, fire, kindle, raise, beset, chevvy, chevy, chivvy, chivy, harass, harry, hassle, molest, plague
Common word forms
provoked, provoker, provokes, provoking
Words from these letters
If you are holding these tiles, the unscrambler for PROVOKE lists every valid word you can make from the same letters, including shorter plays.