evoke
Americanverb (used with object)
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evokes,
present (3rd person singular)
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evoked,
past participle, past
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evoking
present participle
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to call up or produce (memories, feelings, etc.).
to evoke a memory.
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to elicit or draw forth.
His comment evoked protests from the shocked listeners.
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to call up; cause to appear; summon.
to evoke a spirit from the dead.
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to produce or suggest through artistry and imagination a vivid impression of reality.
a short passage that manages to evoke the smells, colors, sounds, and shapes of that metropolis.
verb
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to call or summon up (a memory, feeling, etc), esp from the past
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to call forth or provoke; produce; elicit
his words evoked an angry reply
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to cause (spirits) to appear; conjure up
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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evokesimple
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evokessimple
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have evokedperfect
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has evokedperfect
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am evokingprogressive
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are evokingprogressive
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is evokingprogressive
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have been evokingperfect progressive
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has been evokingperfect progressive
Past
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evokedsimple
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had evokedperfect
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was evokingprogressive
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were evokingprogressive
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had been evokingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of evoke
First recorded in 1615–25; from Latin ēvocāre, from ē- e- 1 + vocāre “to call” (akin to vōx voice )
Explanation
The verb evoke most commonly means to bring a feeling, memory, or picture into the mind. When you visit your old elementary school, the smells, sounds, and colors there can evoke memories from the past. Similarly, a certain reaction can be evoked by words or actions, as in "His comments evoked anger in the community." A near synonym is elicit, as in "No matter how many different ways the detective questioned the suspect, he could not elicit any response. Evoke was borrowed from Latin evocare, from the prefix e- "out," plus vocare "to call."
Vocabulary lists containing evoke
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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:
"The man's crossed legs might evoke indifference, the phone a culture of emptiness, the parasol a comfort people cling to," it said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Muñoz’s program was bookended by dance scores — Ginastera’s “Four Dances from ‘Estancia’” and Copland’s ballet, “Billy the Kid” — that evoke the prairie and the people in it in both viscerally and spiritually.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
Colored-pencil illustrations evoke a faded softness, while comic-style panels zoom in, frame by frame, as different actions unfold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
"It's doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing because these stories are supposed to evoke something within our society."
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
For good measure I added Pi = 3.14 and I drew a large circle, which I then sliced in two with a diameter, to evoke that basic lesson of geometry.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
Barcelona’s most celebrated landmark, drawing about five million annual visitors, evokes the Gothic tradition in which it is rooted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
For many, private school evokes images of elite academies, manicured campuses and plaid Catholic-school uniforms.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
The play, directed by Echo Theater Company founding artistic director Chris Fields, evokes a modern-day version of Arthur Schnitzler‘s “La Ronde,” only with fewer characters and more tech.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
All of it evokes 1950s sci-fi like “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” a sci-fi classic about a spacecraft landing D.C. that features a robot named Gort.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
It signifies wealth, evokes the closeness of family, and sanctifies a proper meal.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
Marco Piemontese’s striking period costumes conjured the artists’ milieu, and Marcus Doshi’s lighting evoked both festivity and the tragedy of the ending.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
In its ruling, the ASA said the woman was wearing "fashionable clothing and accessories standing in front of a scooter next to a body of water, which the ASA considered evoked an aspirational holiday lifestyle".
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
The movie’s sweeping visuals and romantic love story evoked a sentiment similar to 1940s war romances.
From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2026
Intrigued by the vague mixture of menace and nostalgia that the image evoked, internet users began sharing stories and speculating that the Backrooms is a hidden dimension into which people might accidentally find themselves.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
I could not shake the almost desperate sadness all this evoked, and I marveled that sounds could so degrade the spirit.
From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin
Launching their new partnership with Oxen, Hull City have released a very retro kit for the new campaign, evoking the shirts the Tigers wore during the late seventies.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
That drew excitement from industry insiders, with some evoking a 2025 release from China's DeepSeek that shook assumptions of US dominance in AI.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
Like Bierstadt, Church was not just stoking patriotic fervor, but also evoking divine providence as favoring the North’s cause.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Phil and the New York Philharmonic, sonically evoking the environmental difference between L.A. and New York.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
I tried to drive them out by evoking older memories of Kabati before the war.
From "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmael Beah
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.
