invoke
/ɪnˈvəʊk/US/ɪnˈvoʊk/
invoke verb: to call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance.
Verb
invoke (third-person singular simple present invokes, present participle invoking, simple past and past participle invoked)
- To call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance.
- Synonyms:
- invocate
- To solicit, petition for, appeal to a favorable attitude.
- The envoy invoked the King of Kings's magnanimity to reduce his province's tribute after another drought.
- Whatever the pressures that have invoked the Minister's diktat, the outcome is Gilbertian.1964 May, “News and Comment: Minister hamstrings BR workshops”, in Modern Railways, page 291
- To call another ship.
- Synonyms:
- signal
- To call to mind (something) for some purpose.
- After marriage, the man had anciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the power of life and death over his wife. She could invoke no law against him; he was her sole tribunal and law.1869, John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women
- The acquisition of a useless part can hardly be said to raise an organism in the natural scale; and in the case of the imperfect, closed flowers, above described, if any new principle has to be invoked, it must be one of retrogression rather than of progression; and so it must be with many...1872, Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
- Synonyms:
- evoke, bring to mind, call to mind, enmind
- To appeal for validation to a (notably cited) authority.
- In certain Christian circles, invoking the Bible constitutes irrefutable proof.
- He invoked cadaveric poisoning as the reason for the high death rate among priests and monks […]1969, Philip Ziegler, The Black Death, Folio Society, published 2007, page 21
- To conjure up with incantations.
- This satanist ritual invokes Beelzebub.
- Synonyms:
- summon
- To bring about as an inevitable consequence.
- Blasphemy is taboo as it may invoke divine wrath.
- Synonyms:
- bring about, incite, abet, actuate, goose, fuel, light a fire under, send, sting, cheer
- To cause (a program or subroutine) to execute.
- Interactive programs let the users enter choices and invoke the corresponding routines.
- […]the selling price and cost of a particular item are derived by the system through a table lookup and assigned to the item at invoking time.1974 August 7, “Wholesalers Gain Basic Facts”, in Computerworld
invoke meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
invoke in Hindi
- to invoke
- पुकारना pukārnā
- to invoke, appoint
- बदना badnā
invoke in Tamil
- கூப்பிடு, அழை
invoke in Urdu
- to invoke
- پکارنا pukārnā
invoke in Bengali
- আহ্বান করা, সাহায্য প্রার্থনা করা, প্রয়োগ করা
More languagesFewer languages
- invoke in Malayalam
- പ്രാർത്ഥിക്കുക, മാർഗ്ഗദർശനം, പ്രചോദനം, സഹായം അഭ്യർത്ഥിക്കുക
- invoke in Kannada
- ಬೇಡು, ಕೋರು, ಮೊರೆಯಿಡು, ಬೇಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳು
- invoke in Sanskrit
- गृणाति gṛṇāti
- invoke in Arabic
- دَعَا daʕā
Examples of invoke in a sentence
- It is easier to invoke or to deplore democracy than to say exactly what it is.1912, William Sharp McKechnie, The New Democracy and the Constitution:
- C++ lets you invoke an operator function either by calling the function or by using the overloaded operator with its usual syntax.2011, Stephen Prata, C++ Primer Plus:
Synonyms of invoke
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of invoke
| third-person singular present | invokes |
|---|---|
| present participle | invoking |
| past participle | invoked |
| past | invoked |
| alternative misspelling (archaic) | envoke |
Origin of invoke
From Middle English *invoken, envoken, borrowed from Old French envoquer, from Latin invocāre (“to call upon”), itself from in- + vocare (“to call”). Doublet of invocate.
Words formed from invoke
Questions about invoke
- What does invoke mean?
- Invoke means to call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance.
- What is invoke in Hindi?
- Invoke in Hindi is पुकारना (pukārnā), बदना (badnā). See Invoke meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use invoke in a sentence?
- It is easier to invoke or to deplore democracy than to say exactly what it is.
- What part of speech is invoke?
- Invoke is a verb.
- How do you pronounce invoke?
- Invoke is pronounced /ɪnˈvoʊk/ (US).
- What is the past tense of invoke?
- The past tense of invoke is invoked.
Words near invoke in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: invoke (page history and authors); पुकारना (Hindi) (page history and authors); invoke (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); پکارنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); Invoke (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); invoke (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); invoke (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-invoke.wav.
Cite this entry: “invoke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/invoke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.