To rouse to exasperation or anger; provoke.
He tried to provoke them into fighting.
Don't provoke the animals in the cage.
The North may try to provoke a naval skirmish.
Such a questionable assertion is sure to provoke criticism.
If you provoke the dog, he may bite you.
Once a rogue bear is on the prowl, it is not just foolish to provoke it.
All this suggests that the government is trying to provoke the opposition to violence.
A CONTEMPORARY work of art can provoke outrage disproportionate to its artistic merit.
What have the kids done to provoke you? Why should you take it out on them?
This very idea is going to provoke howls from the right, but I think that's alarmist twaddle.
Some people worry that the election of a black President will provoke a surge in hate crimes in America.
The strongest risk factors for developing asthma are inhaled substances and particles that may provoke allergic reactions or irritate the airways.
Such conduct made them of course most exceedingly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and seemed hardly to provoke them.
What experimental procedure could provoke some people to profuse sweating and trembling, leaving 10% extremely upset, while others broke into unexplained hysterical laughter?
They are shooting rockets into Israel, they want to provoke an escalation, and they do not want to see the peace process succeed.
We would have read the kind of tick-tock reconstructions that the deaths of Americans abroad in violent and disputed circumstances tend to provoke.
And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
In the wake of the multiple scandals over tainted Chinese food and drug exports in recent months, such an exercise might now provoke outright hostility rather than uneasy indifference.
That rebel should is the backstage manipulator's informer and wants to provoke the narration between us and blue clothe male, it isn't to make the blue dress man collaborate with us.
Most may have given up on serious defence spending, and many work hard not to provoke scary powers like Russia and China, but that is not the same thing.
That leaf boat was as same as the boat in the daytime and was still an empty boat. The school must install a night light in boat sedulously to provoke students' pondering in night .
