provoke

verb

1. 1

   To cause someone to become annoyed or angry.

   Don't provoke the dog; it may try to bite you.

   Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

2. 2

   To bring about a reaction.

   To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provokes in his own soul.

   Thence Sish went forth into the world to destroy its cities, and to provoke his hours to assail all things, and to batter against them with the rust and with the dust.

   An old traditional prescription for provoking erotic inclinations ran as follows, The toe of the foot of a man, anointed with oil, or honey, or the ashes of a weasel.

   Spain were provoked into a response and Villa almost provided a swift equaliser when he rounded Hart but found the angle too acute and could only hit the side-netting.

3. 3

   obsoleteTo appeal.

   Even Arius and Pelagius durst provoke To what the centuries preceding spoke.

Forms

past tense

provoked

past participle

provoked

present participle

provoking

third person singular

provokes