Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

evoke

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Remove ads

English

WOTD – 10 May 2010

Etymology

From French évoquer, from Latin ēvocō (“to call out, summon”), from ex (“out”) and vocō (“call”). Akin to voice.

Pronunciation

Verb

evoke (third-person singular simple present evokes, present participle evoking, simple past and past participle evoked)

  1. (transitive) To call out; to draw out or bring forth.
  2. (transitive) To cause the manifestation of something (emotion, picture, etc.) in someone's mind or imagination.
    Synonyms: invoke, excite, inspire, put someone in mind of
    Coordinate terms: connote, denote, allude
    Being here evokes long forgotten memories.
    Seeing this happen equally evokes fear and anger in me.
    The book evokes a detailed and lively picture of what life was like in the 19th century.
    • 2007 July 25, Roberta Smith, “Figures Moving as if in a Trance Across an Isolated, Lawless Island”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 26 November 2022:
      The face of the dying man in the lingchi video monotonously evokes Maria Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer ’s 1928 “Passion of Joan of Arc.”
  3. (transitive) To elicit a response.
    Synonyms: instigate, provoke; see also Thesaurus:incite
    • 1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Past, Present and Future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 98:
      The outstanding train on the L.M.S. route was the 6.20 p.m. from Birmingham, which reached Euston in two hours after intermediate stops at Coventry, Rugby and Watford Junction, and evoked some sparkling performances from "Patriot" and "Jubilee" 4-6-0s.

Derived terms

Translations

Remove ads

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads
Remove ads