Definition of provoke

• v. t. - To call forth; to call into being or action; esp., to incense to action, a faculty or passion, as love, hate, or ambition; hence, commonly, to incite, as a person, to action by a challenge, by taunts, or by defiance; to exasperate; to irritate; to offend intolerably; to cause to retaliate.
• v. i. - To cause provocation or anger.
• v. i. - To appeal. [A Latinism]