vi to appeal. [a latinism].
2. provoke ·vi to cause provocation or anger.
3. provoke ·vt 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.