Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Provoke \Pro*voke"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Provoked}; p. pr. &
vb. n. {Provoking}.] [F. provoquer, L. provocare to call
forth; pro forth + vocare to call, fr. vox, vocis, voice,
cry, call. See {Voice}.]
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.
Obey his voice, provoke him not. --Ex. xxiii.
21.
Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath. --Eph.
vi. 4.
Such acts Of contumacy will provoke the Highest To make
death in us live. --Milton.
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust? --Gray.
To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it,
what it provokes in his own soul. -- J.
Burroughs.
Syn: To irritate; arouse; stir up; awake; excite; incite;
anger. See {Irritate}.
Source : WordNet®
provoked
adj : incited, especially deliberately, to anger; "aggravated by
passive resistance"; "the provoked animal attacked the
child" [syn: {aggravated}]