evocative

American  

[ih-vok-uh-tiv, ih-voh-kuh-] / ɪˈvɒk ə tɪv, ɪˈvoʊ kə- /

adjective

1. tending to evoke.

   The perfume was evocative of spring.

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evocative British  

/ ɪˈvɒkətɪv /

adjective

1. tending or serving to evoke

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Other Word Forms

• evocatively adverb
• evocativeness noun
• nonevocative adjective
• unevocative adjective

Etymology

Origin of evocative

1650–60; < Latin ēvocātīvus, equivalent to ēvocāt ( us ) ( evoke, -ate ¹ ) + -īvus -ive

Example Sentences

Mail-order catalogs such as the midcentury Sears, Roebuck Christmas edition overflowed with evocative shades—winterberry, burnished beige, rico green—meant to conjure a feeling as much as a hue.

From The Wall Street Journal

His evocative depictions of forest scenes are stunning in their own right, hypnotically expressive and made to tickle your id, unearthing deeply rooted primal sensations.

From The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Friedman often rides his bike in his hometown of Jerusalem, at the intersection of roads named for Senesh and Sereni, “hoping for something evocative to happen.”

From The Wall Street Journal

On many tracks, he crafts a thickened variation on Bob Dylan’s wild mercury sound, with gurgling organ, touches of strings and horns, and evocative swells of pedal-steel guitar.

From The Wall Street Journal

Fennell is not merely playing fast and loose with her source material, as a skeptic might think; she’s lifting the evocative images of Brontë’s prose and envisioning them as one might when reading the novel.

From Salon

Related Words

• expressive
• reminiscent