Invoke Meaning
/ɪnˈvoʊk/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
verbTo call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance.
verbTo solicit, petition for, appeal to a favorable attitude.
Sentence Examples
How do we invoke a response from the computer?
Once Tom tried to invoke a demon, and he almost succeeded.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The lawyer decided to ____ the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering the question during the trial.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The president decided to ____ emergency powers to deal with the natural disaster that hit the coast.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English *invoken, envoken, borrowed from Old French envoquer, from Latin invocāre (“to call upon”), itself from in- + vocare (“to call”). Doublet of invocate.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Whatever the pressures that have invoked the Minister's diktat, the outcome is Gilbertian."
— 1964 May, “News and Comment: Minister hamstrings BR workshops”, in Modern Railways, page 291:
"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."
— 2021 August 25, David Clough, “The Sleeper experience”, in RAIL, number 938, page 61:
"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."
— 1869, John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women:
"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."
— 1872, Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species:
"It is easier to invoke or to deplore democracy than to say exactly what it is."
— 1912, William Sharp McKechnie, The New Democracy and the Constitution:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The lawyer decided to ____ the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering the question during the trial.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The president decided to ____ emergency powers to deal with the natural disaster that hit the coast.