Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Showing results for provo. Search instead for Provok.
Jump To:
  • provo
    provo
    noun
    a Dutch or German political agitator, especially in the 1960s and 1970s.
  • Provo
    Provo
    noun
    a city in central Utah.

provo

1 American  
[proh-voh] / ˈproʊ voʊ /

noun

(sometimes initial capital letter)
  • provos
    plural
  1. a Dutch or German political agitator, especially in the 1960s and 1970s.


Provo 2 American  
[proh-voh] / ˈproʊ voʊ /

noun

  1. a city in central Utah.


Provo 3 American  
[proh-voh] / ˈproʊ voʊ /

noun

(sometimes lowercase)
  • Provos
    plural
  1. a member of the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army.


Provo British  
/ ˈprəʊvəʊ /

noun

  1. another name for a Provisional

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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:

University of Utah geologists have now taken a detailed look inside one of the state's largest examples, the Timpanogos Rock Glacier beneath the prominent summit of Mount Timpanogos near Salt Lake City and Provo.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026

Health officials have also imposed temporary restrictions on the school's boys' campus in Provo, Utah, in June.

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

Ward services like this have brought a consistent comfort and sense of community for Izzy, who came to Provo to study at Brigham Young University a few years ago.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025

Get your bags packed, kid, you’re lieading to Provo to the MTC, the Missionary Training Center, then to Canada, where you were supposed to go on the first mission.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

Most hackers wouldn’t have even looked at Provos’s old code, assuming that it had been picked over for bugs, Provos said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026

We also had the ERG at war with itself over who were the Provos and who were the Real ERG.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 29, 2019

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

“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

One character in Peter Maas' richly layered novel of Paddys and Provos says the Irish have been going at it since the 12th century.

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 Paul Cameron Brown

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 John McElroy

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 14,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training