invoke

present singular third person invokes · participle present invoking · participle past invoked · past invoked · alternative archaic misspelling envoke

1. transitiveTo call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance.

   Synonyms: invocate

2. transitiveTo solicit, petition for, appeal to a favorable attitude.

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

   2 more examples

   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

   Synonyms: solicit, appeal, petition

3. transitivenauticalTo call another ship.

   Synonyms: signal

4. transitiveTo call to mind (something) for some purpose.

   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

   2 more examples

   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

   Synonyms: evoke, bring to mind, call to mind, enmind

5. transitiveTo appeal for validation to a (notably cited) authority.

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

   2 more examples

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

   1969, Philip Ziegler, The Black Death, Folio Society, published 2007, page 21

   Their ties to the area may be based on traditional rather than written claims – but Bir Tawil is not any more a “no man’s land” than the territory once known as British East Africa, where terra nullius was repeatedly invoked in the early 20th century by both chartered companies and the British government that supported them to justify the appropriation of territory from indigenous people.

   2016 March 3, Jack Shenker, “Welcome to the land that no country wants”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 06 Apr 2020

   Synonyms: cite, reference, appeal

6. transitiveTo conjure up with incantations.

   This satanist ritual invokes Beelzebub.

   Synonyms: summon

7. transitiveTo bring about as an inevitable consequence.

   Blasphemy is taboo as it may invoke divine wrath.

   Synonyms: bring about, incite, abet, actuate, goose, fuel, light a fire under, send

8. transitivecomputingTo cause (a program or subroutine) to execute.

   Interactive programs let the users enter choices and invoke the corresponding routines.

   2 more examples

   […]the selling price and cost of a particular item are derived by the system through a table lookup and assigned to the item at invoking time.

   1974 August 7, “Wholesalers Gain Basic Facts”, in Computerworld

   C++ lets you invoke an operator function either by calling the function or by using the overloaded operator with its usual syntax.

   2011, Stephen Prata, C++ Primer Plus

   Synonyms: call, execute, launch, run