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evoke or invoke?
Don’t feel bad if you have difficulty remembering the difference between evoke and invoke, as the words are quite similar in many ways and have considerable overlap in meaning. However, the words do differ, and you would not want to substitute one for the other. Invoke is used of putting into effect or calling upon such things as laws, authority, or privilege (“the principal invoked a rule forbidding students from asking questions”). Evoke is primarily used in the sense “to call forth or up” and is often found in connection with such things as memories, emotions, or sympathy.
Synonyms
Examples of invoke in a Sentence
Thomas Nagel, New Republic, 14 Jan. 2002
There are some people who commit murder as a way of invoking the death penalty. Capital punishment can sometimes, then, be equivalent to suicide.
—George Freeman Solomon, People, 17 Jan. 1977
We began poring over the typewritten recipes at the dining room table, where I foolishly invoked the name of Julia Child …
—Gael Greene, New York, 13 Sept. 1971
He invoked the memory of his predecessor.
She invoked history to prove her point.
He invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges.
The suspect invoked his right to an attorney.
invoke the authority of the court
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Sakshi Venkatraman, NBC News, 21 Nov. 2023
Another retiree, 80-year-old Gene Vickrey, explained his opposition to the reactor by invoking Chernobyl.
—Karin Brulliard, Washington Post, 20 Nov. 2023
The Biden administration is making the move by invoking the Defense Production Act, a provision that allows the president to spur the manufacture of materials needed for national defense.
—WIRED, 17 Nov. 2023
On the trail, Mr. Kennedy has delivered a populist message of anti-corporate rhetoric and debunked science while invoking a powerful lineage: his uncles, former President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy, and his father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
—Susanne Craig, New York Times, 16 Nov. 2023
This ghost of slavery that has been invoked has the effect of intimidating those who, from convictions of duty, are seeking to emancipate the enslaved race in this state.
—Anna Deavere Smith, The Atlantic, 13 Nov. 2023
In their list of demands, Republican senators also included dramatic restrictions on the use of humanitarian parole, a law the Biden administration has invoked to welcome hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees from Afghanistan, Latin America and Ukraine.
—Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News, 10 Nov. 2023
Bob Dylan, the Jew who caused the heads of every diehard Roth fan to quietly explode when he was awarded his Nobel, was invoked in my presence exactly once all weekend—by a man who wrote a book about him.
—Hannah Gold, Harper's Magazine, 3 Nov. 2023
Asher would be the first to invoke the truism that Whitney inspires him to be a better person.
—Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 11 Nov. 2023
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These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'invoke.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
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Dictionary Entries Near invoke
Cite this Entry
“Invoke.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invoke. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.
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invoke
transitive verb
More from Merriam-Webster on invoke
Nglish: Translation of invoke for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of invoke for Arabic Speakers
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