provo
noun
a Dutch or German political agitator, especially in the 1960s and 1970s.
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provo
1 American
[proh-voh]
/ ˈproʊ voʊ /
noun
(sometimes initial capital letter)
-
provos
plural
Provo
2
American
[proh-voh]
/ ˈproʊ voʊ /
noun
Provo
3
American
[proh-voh]
/ ˈproʊ voʊ /
noun
(sometimes lowercase)
-
Provos
plural
Provo
British
/ ˈprəʊvəʊ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of provo1
1965–70; shortened from French provocateur provocateur
Origin of Provo3
First recorded in 1970–75; prov(isional) + -o
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Identification of the family instead came from Provo Fire & Rescue, which announced the death of Captain Spencer Long in a statement of its own.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Today, the state confirmed what survivors have known all along: Provo Canyon School failed the children in its care.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
The company will process the minerals at its manufacturing facility nearby in Provo, Utah.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025
Charlie Kirk’s plane took Erika to Provo, where she insisted on seeing her husband’s body.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2025
She wasn’t sure of the details, but she could surmise that he’d told someone at the Mission Training Center in Provo that he’d done something inappropriate in the lead-up to the mission.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
“To be honest, I just thought it was hilarious. Because it’s code that is so old,” said Provos, formerly head of security with the payments company Stripe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026
This spring, “Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia” will celebrate works from the past, including the Emeryville mud flats sculptures between Berkeley and Oakland and the radical actions of the Dutch group the Provos.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2017
Perhaps there were no direct links between the Provos and Ajax but the football of Ajax developed in an age when questioning the orthodoxy was the norm; everything could be challenged.
From The Guardian ● May 22, 2013
“We have done a lot of work to detect these quickly and to warn users,” Niels Provos, principal software engineer in Google’s infrastructure security group, said in an interview.
From BusinessWeek ● Feb. 15, 2011
Since then, the Provos and the much smaller I.N.L.
From Time Magazine Archive
With timing Secretary of State Kerry must have viewed as perverse, the Americans, Europeans, Russians and provos met in Geneva the next day to negotiate a deescalation.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2014
During the national Liberation Day celebration two weeks ago, 140 provos and other student activists were arrested.
From Time Magazine Archive
He could not help but think of the provos warning nuzzled like that dog's steady cry over and over into the fabric of one's memory swift as searing iron.
From The Land of Look Behind by Brown, Paul Cameron
Shorty grabbed what money there was on the board, and he and Si made a burst of speed which took them out of reach of the "provos" in a few seconds.
From Si Klegg, Book 3 (of 6) Si And Shorty Meet Mr. Rosenbaum, The Spy, Who Relates His Adventures by McElroy, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
