verb
definition
To cause someone to become annoyed or angry.
example
Don't provoke the dog; it may try to bite you.
definition
To bring about a reaction.
definition
To appeal.
Examples of provoked in a Sentence
I shouldn't have provoked him.
Meantime the excesses of the French republicans had provoked reaction in England, and the Tory ministry adopted a policy of repression.
When the anti-clerical policy of the revolutionary powers provoked the rising of the peasantry, of La Vendee, he put himself at the head of the men of his neighbourhood, and came rapidly to the front among the gentlemen whom the peasants took for leaders.
In September 1876 the massacre of a large number of girls (who had married men of their own age instead of the men of an older regiment, for whom Cetywayo had designed them) provoked a strong remonstrance from the government of Natal, inclined as that government was to look leniently on the doings of the Zulu.
During the war of1899-1902there was some fighting between the Zulu and the Boers, provoked by the Boers entering Zulu territory.
This did not satisfy the ciompi, and the disorders provoked by them resulted in a new government which reformed the two councils so as to exclude the lower orders.
The controversy his intolerance provoked was closed by Augustine's controversial treatise De Baptismo, in which the validity of baptism administered by heretics is based on the objectivity of the sacrament.
Not till 1736 were the statutes against witchcraft repealed; an act which the Associate Presbytery at Edinburgh in 1743 declared to be" contrary to the express law of God, for which a holy God may be provoked in a way of righteous judgment."The recognition and condemnation of errors in religious belief is by no means confined to the Christian Church.
In support of this view he wrote a letter Concerning Enthusiasm to Lord Somers, dated September 1707, which was published anonymously in the following year, and provoked several replies.
This decree, as soon as it was published in Prague (March 9, 1410), led to much popular agitation, and provoked an appeal by Huss to the pope's better informed judgment; the archbishop, however, resolutely insisted on carrying out his instructions, and in the following July caused to be publicly burned, in the courtyard of his own palace, upwards of 200 volumes of the writings of Wycliffe, while he pronounced solemn sentence of excommunication against Huss and certain of his friends, who had in the meantime again protested and appealed to the new pope (John XXIII.).
He sold his share in the property in 1776 for £35,000, and took leave of the stage by playing a round of his favourite characters - Hamlet, Lear, Richard and Benedick, among Shakespearian parts; Lusignan in Zara, Aaron Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's Zaire; and Kitely in his own adaptation of Ben Jonson's Archer in Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem; Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's Alchemist; Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife; Leon in Fletcher's Rule a Wife and have a Wife.
At a later period, however, the difficulty of screening the rites of baptism and Eucharist from the eyes of catechumens and from their ears the creeds and liturgies - a difficulty which had ever been formidable and which after the overthrow of paganism must have become insurmountable - seems to have provoked not only a great outpouring on the part of the Christian rhetors, like Basil, Chrysostom, the Gregories and the Cyrils, of phrases borrowed from the Greek mysteries, but perhaps an actual use of precautions.
Some months later he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, and this provoked a torrent of public indignation.
This incident provoked the wildest indignation, and Russia was for some days on the verge of war with England.
Clark aspired to be a United States senator, but by ridiculing Daly, provoked a powerful opposition.
This attack on the religion and property of the Saxons aroused intense indignation, and provoked the rising of 782 which marks the beginning of the second period of the war.
The restrictions on Irish commerce provoked Locke's friend William Molyneux (1656-1698) to write his famous plea for legislative independence (1698).
It was the night he provoked her and forced her to say the words that brought her world crashing down.
He didn't ask how she had provoked him.
On his death Teumman succeeded and almost immediately provoked a quarrel with Assur-bani-pal by demanding the surrender of his nephews who had taken refuge at the Assyrian court.
She also provoked a dangerous enemy in John Knox by her expressed contempt for a letter which he had written to her, but the first revolt against her authority arose from an attempt to establish a standing army.
It appeared in March 1676, and provoked a warm protest from the Venetian ambassador, Giustiniani.
He intended fully to restrain within legal bounds the opposition which the excise on domestic spirits had provoked, but he made the serious mistake of not allowing sufficiently for the character of the backwoods population When legal resistance developed into insurrection, Gallatin did his best to retrieve his error and prevent open war.
Many of his bold and novel theories have provoked strenuous opposition, while others have met with general acceptance, except among scholars of the more conservative type.
The conclusion that the foundations are those of an old temple burnt by the Persians has been generally accepted, but other portions of Dorpfeld's theory - more especially his assumption that the temple was restored after the Persian War - have provoked much controversy.
Calvinism had become, towards the close of the 16th century, supreme in Holland, but the very rigour of the uniformity it exacted provoked a reaction.
Though it was an attempt to bring into line with the reforming party both those who still inclined to the old faith and the anabaptist section, its publication provoked a good deal of controversy, especially on its statements concerning the Eucharist, and the people of Strassburg even reproached those of Basel with celebrating a Christless supper.
He engaged in the Pelagian controversy with more than even his usual bitterness (Dialogi contra pelagianos); and it is said that the violence of his invective so provoked his opponents that an armed mob attacked the monastery, and that Jerome was forced to flee and to remain in concealment for nearly two years.
A conspiracy against Charles, which his friend and biographer Einhard alleges was provoked by the cruelties of Queen Fastrada, was suppressed without difficulty in 792, and its leader, the king's illegitimate son Pippin, was confined in a monastery till his death in 811.
Catherine's policy provoked a crowd of pamphlets, the most celebrated being the Discours inerveilleux de la vie, actions et deportemens de la seine Catherine de Medicis, in which Henri Estienne undoubtedly collaborated.
But he was suspicious of Sir Edward Grey's foreign policy, which he thought too slavish in its following of Lord Lansdowne; and he opposed the naval increases of the years before the World War, as the socialists in Berlin had opposed the German increases which provoked British rejoinders.
The assent of Lord Elgin to the bill provoked in Montreal a riot which ended in the burning of the houses of parliament, and so great was the indignation of the hitherto ultra-loyal Conservative party that many of its most prominent members signed a document favouring annexation to the United States; Macdonald on the other hand took steps, in conjunction with others, to form a British-American league, having for its object the confederation of all the provinces, the strengthening of the connexion with the mother country, and the adoption of a national commercial policy.
The bitterness which this occurrence provoked was intensified by a political reaction which was initiated about the same time under Kenneritz.
Henry, however, refused to give up the lands which he had seized belonging to the bishopric, and this conduct provoked a war in which Ulalrich was soon joined by Philip, archbishop of Cologne.
This ill-judged lenity provoked a few months later an intolerable insult to his dignity.
In fact, she died in the following July, and it was then discovered that the physical appearances which first provoked suspicion.
The hardship inflicted on the native races provoked an insurrection throughout Java, in which the Chinese settlers participated; but the Dutch maintained naval and military forces strong enough to crush all resistance, and a treaty between the company and the Susuhunan in November 1749 made them practically supreme throughout the island.
Several of the earlier events of his life, especially his marriage with the princess Louise of Orleans, and the duel that the comte d'Artois provoked by raising the veil of the princess at a masked ball, caused much scandal.
In August 1787 Russia and Austria provoked the Porte to declare war against them both, and two months later a defensive alliance was concluded between Prussia, England and Holland, as a counterpoise to the alarming preponderance of Russia.
On the right the events of December 1995 have provoked a crisis which continues to wreak havoc.
This provoked disbelief, not least from Rose, but put off the argument with Alice that had been brewing.
A patch test with a leaf provoked diffuse erythema and edema.
Any thoughts on NSA (the National Security Administration, whose domestic eavesdropping program has provoked a political firestorm )?
This provoked a miniature flurry of responses from both members and non-members of MLS.
It produced a body of work that is still remembered, has provoked many happy memories and produced a life-long friendship.
The Magdalene Sisters, which has provoked the fury of the Catholic Church, is due to open in UK cinemas next February.
It was the moves by the Chávez government to take control of oil industry that provoked the most immediate howls of outrage.
However, Anne Campbell Mcinnes soon found that the idea of so early a map appearing after centuries of obscurity provoked complete incredulity.
Under Augustus, a father used his legal right to execute a delinquent son, and provoked the indignation of Rome.
The idea of hundreds of lorries and trains traveling the length of Scotland provoked strong opposition.