Word.ws English Dictionary

provocate

UK/pɹəˈvɒk.eɪt/US/pɹəˈvɑ(ː).keɪt/

provocate verb: to provoke.

Verb

provocate (third-person singular simple present provocates, present participle provocating, simple past and past participle provocated)

  1. (now nonstandard and non-native speakers' English) To provoke.
    • The movie called It is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse But the Society In Which He Lives was a provocating movie. It dramatized the situation and got hard reactions from the gays and the straights. But when you look at it now it is full of hate. And it was OK, in a way, to provocate, but it was...1981 December 12, Michael Bronski, Frank Ripploh, “The Meter Is Still Running”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 21, page 8
  2. To call forth.
  3. To challenge.

Forms of provocate

third-person singular presentprovocates
present participleprovocating
past participleprovocated
pastprovocated

Origin of provocate

From Middle English provocaten, from Latin prōvocō, prōvocātus. Doublet of provoke.

Questions about provocate

What does provocate mean?
Provocate means to provoke.
What part of speech is provocate?
Provocate is a verb.
How do you pronounce provocate?
Provocate is pronounced /pɹəˈvɒk.eɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of provocate?
The past tense of provocate is provocated.

Words near provocate in the dictionary

  1. Provoans
  2. provocability
  3. provocable
  4. provocant
  5. provocants
  6. provocate
  7. provocated
  8. provocates
  9. provocateur
  10. provocateurs
  11. provocateuse

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: provocate (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:

Cite this entry: “provocate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/provocate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.