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provoke
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  • •
    "You didn't do something to provoke him, did you?" asked Mr. Eberhardt.  (source)
    provoke = cause an angry reaction
  • •
    "He was provoked, Professor Snape," said Hagrid, sticking his huge hairy face out from behind the tree. "Malfoy was insultin' his family."  (source)
    provoked = made to be angry
  • •
    On my part, I went to much trouble, sometimes, not to provoke her.  (source)
    provoke = cause anger from
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  • •
    So I began to purposefully irritate her, hoping I could provoke her enough that she would end my misery.  (source)
    provoke = get her angry
  • •
    "We were sorely provoked," said Jewel.  (source)
    provoked = incited (deliberately encouraged an emotional reaction)
  • •
    He said that my sister was not allowed to see the boy who hit her anymore, and he was going to have a talk with the boy's parents tonight. My sister then said that it was all her fault, that she was provoking him, but my dad said it was no excuse.  (source)
    provoking = making (him) so angry he would react
  • •
    We fell silent, listening for agitation in the nursing station--the sort of agitation an escape provokes.  (source)
    provokes = causes to happen
  • •
    The newspapers were filled with accounts of unprovoked pit bull attacks, sometimes fatal, against both animals and humans.†  (source)
    unprovoked = not justified or explained as an understandable reaction to another action
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unprovoked means not and reverses the meaning of provoked. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • •
    Nature looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause like all the rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch so immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable?†  (source)
    provokingly = in a manner that causes a reaction
  • •
    Then Zeus the cloud-gatherer, sore troubled, spake to her: "Verily it is a sorry matter, if thou wilt set me at variance with Hera, whene'er she provoketh me with taunting words.†  (source)
    provoketh = causes (a reaction)
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-th" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She provoketh" in older English, today we say "She provokes."
  • •
    This was one of his favorite starts—he seldom had a word in mind, but it was a curiosity provoker, and he could always produce something complimentary if he got in a tight corner.†  (source)
    provoker = someone who causes a reaction
  • •
    quivering me to a new identity, Flames and ether making a rush for my veins, Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them, My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself, On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs, Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip, Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial, Depriving me of my best as for a purpose, Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist, Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields, Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away, They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of me, No consid†  (source)
  • •
    And being now trimm'd in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, That thou provokest thyself to cast him up.†  (source)
    provokest = cause a reaction
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-st" is dropped, so that where they said "Thou provokest" in older English, today we say "You provoke."
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