provocatively
Americanadverb
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.
Dr. Flaherty provocatively suggests that Van Gogh suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy and that his condition may have played an important role in his achievements.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 2026
A US negotiator even provocatively put an empty chair with a Chinese flag.
From Barron's ● Feb. 1, 2026
“Have y’all not learned?” an agent provocatively asks a legal observer in a video that’s been circulating among volunteers, two days after Good was killed.
From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2026
Oswaldo Zavala is a Mexican academic and writer whose provocatively titled 2022 book — “Drug Cartels Do Not Exist” — argues for a bold reframing of how to think about organized crime in his country.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2024
Doubletree Mutt looked into the barn, his big tail waving provocatively, and Jody was so incensed at his health that he found a hard black clod on the floor and deliberately threw it.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
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.
