evoke

English

WOTD – 10 May 2010

Etymology

From French évoquer, from Latin ēvocō (“to call out, summon”), from ex (“out”) and vocō (“call”). Akin to voice.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -əʊk
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪˈvəʊk/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɪˈvoʊk/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

evoke (third-person singular simple present evokes, present participle evoking, simple past and past participle evoked)

1. (transitive) To call out; to draw out or bring forth.
2. (transitive) To cause the manifestation of something (emotion, picture, etc.) in someone's mind or imagination.

   Synonyms: put someone in mind of, excite

   Coordinate terms: connote, denote, allude

   Being here evokes long forgotten memories.

   Seeing this happen equally evokes fear and anger in me.

   The book evokes a detailed and lively picture of what life was like in the 19th century.

3. (transitive) To elicit a response.
   • 1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Past, Present and Future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 98:

     The outstanding train on the L.M.S. route was the 6.20 p.m. from Birmingham, which reached Euston in two hours after intermediate stops at Coventry, Rugby and Watford Junction, and evoked some sparkling performances from "Patriot" and "Jubilee" 4-6-0s.

Derived terms

• evocable
• reevoke, re-evoke, reëvoke

Related terms

• evince
• evocate
• evocation
• invoke

Translations

to cause the manifestation of

• Arabic: اِسْتَحْضَارَ (istaḥḍāra), اِسْتَدَعَى (istadaʕā)
• Armenian: հարուցել (hy) (harucʻel), առաջացնել (hy) (aṙaǰacʻnel)
• Bulgarian: предизвиквам (bg) (predizvikvam), събуждам (bg) (sǎbuždam)
• Catalan: evocar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 喚起／唤起 (zh) (huànqǐ)

• Czech: vyvolat (cs), vyvolávat (cs), evokovat
• Danish: fremmane, fremkalde (da), vække (da)
• Dutch: oproepen (nl)
• Esperanto: elvoki
• Finnish: herättää (fi), synnyttää (fi)
• French: évoquer (fr), remémorer (fr)
• Galician: evocar
• German: hervorrufen (de), heraufbeschwören (de)
• Hebrew: עורר (he)
• Hungarian: felidéz (hu)
• Interlingua: evocar, rememorar (ia)
• Italian: ^{(please verify)} evocare (it), ^{(please verify)} rammemorare, ^{(please verify)} rammentare (it), rammemorare ("rammemorarsi" exists)
• Japanese: 喚起する (ja) (かんきする, kanki-suru)
• Latin: ēvōcō
• Norwegian: framkalle
• Polish: wywoływać (pl), przywoływać (pl)
• Portuguese: evocar (pt)
• Russian: вызыва́ть (ru) impf (vyzyvátʹ), вы́звать (ru) pf (výzvatʹ)
• Spanish: evocar (es), rememorar (es)
• Swedish: frammana (sv)