Pro*voke" (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Provoked (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Provoking.] [F. provoquer, L. provocare to call forth; pro forth + vocare to call, fr. vox, vocis, voice, cry, call. See Voice.]
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.
© Webster 1913.
Pro*voke", v. i.
1.
To cause provocation or anger.
2.
To appeal. [A Latinism]
[Obs.]
Dryden.
© Webster 1913.