Meaning

(transitive) To call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance.
2. (transitive) To solicit, petition for, appeal to a favorable attitude.
3. (transitive, nautical, of one ship) To call another ship.
4. (transitive) To call to mind (something) for some purpose.
5. (transitive) To appeal for validation to a (notably cited) authority.
6. (transitive) To conjure up with incantations.
7. (transitive) To bring about as an inevitable consequence.
8. (transitive, computing) To cause (a program or subroutine) to execute.

Example Sentences

The envoy invoked the King of Kings's magnanimity to reduce his province's tribute after another drought.

Whatever the pressures that have invoked the Minister's diktat, the outcome is Gilbertian.

In May [1995], the court issued an interdict preventing the service withdrawal, pending consultation on the closure to passenger traffic of three short stretches of railway around Glasgow and its hinterland that were only used by the Fort William Sleeper - and for which BR had failed to invoke standard closure procedures.

After marriage, the man had anciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the power of life and death over his wife. She could invoke no law against him; he was her sole tribunal and law.

The acquisition of a useless part can hardly be said to raise an organism in the natural scale; and in the case of the imperfect, closed flowers, above described, if any new principle has to be invoked, it must be one of retrogression rather than of progression; and so it must be with many parasitic and degraded animals.

It is easier to invoke or to deplore democracy than to say exactly what it is.

In certain Christian circles, invoking the Bible constitutes irrefutable proof.

He invoked cadaveric poisoning as the reason for the high death rate among priests and monks […]

Word Forms

• invokes
• invoking
• invoked
• envoke

Synonyms for invoke

Related Words

When Should You Use Invoke?

Use invoke when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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