agent provocateur

Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of agent provocateur There is the buffer, the confidante, the agent provocateur. George Caulkin, New York Times, 7 July 2025 But De Niro’s attempt at playing agent provocateur stumbled badly: His decision to stand outside the New York Trump trial cost the actor his credibility. Armond White, National Review, 5 June 2024 Members of the crowd accused Epps of being an agent provocateur, which later helped spur the conspiracy theories about him. Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post, 9 Jan. 2024 The Globoplay Original, produced by the company’s journalism arm, examines the lives of those adjacent to the faction through interviews with the contingents’ defenders, defectors, sociologists and an agent provocateur that develops carefully-orchestrated chaos. Holly Jones, Variety, 20 Mar. 2023 Anyone who maligns the sultan is immediately thought to be an agent provocateur working for the sultan, and probably is. Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 30 Sep. 2022 The last dispatch from the alien/agent provocateur known as Greg Tate beamed out from perhaps his most inconspicuous dwelling. Tirhakah Love, Vulture, 14 Dec. 2021 At the same time, agents provocateurs played a significant role in the turbulence. Adam Hochschild, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for agent provocateur
Noun
  • The apparent killing – captured on video shared online by the rebels themselves – took place at a university medical school in El Fasher in Sudan’s western Darfur region after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took over the city on Sunday.
    Ivana Kottasová, CNN Money, 30 Oct. 2025
  • As regular troops in French service, the British treated them as prisoners of war instead of Jacobite rebels, and eventually repatriated them to France.
    Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 30 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has successfully recruited prized political heavyweights in key battlegrounds, but left-wing insurgents are threatening to dash his plans to create a competitive midterm map for Democrats.
    Ramsey Touchberry, The Washington Examiner, 26 Oct. 2025
  • Al-Shabaab, an Islamist insurgent group that has battled the central government for two decades in southern and central Somalia, is gaining ground.
    Omar S Mahmood, Time, 24 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric and endorsement of AfD, Germany’s extremist, anti-immigrant party, have weighed on left-leaning consumers’ interest in the Tesla brand there.
    Lora Kolodny, CNBC, 5 Nov. 2025
  • The pitch helped the Democratic nominee withstand Earle-Sears’ attacks on cultural issues, notably the Republican’s assertion that Spanberger is an extremist on transgender rights.
    Sydney Lake, Fortune, 5 Nov. 2025
Noun
  • Malala Yousafzai is a bit of a troublemaker.
    Clare Mulroy, USA Today, 21 Oct. 2025
  • Mindy Kaling once called me a Loki, like a bit of a troublemaker.
    Tony Maglio, HollywoodReporter, 17 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Most of the records on the Haitian revolution were written by people who opposed the revolutionaries.
    Julia Gaffield, The Conversation, 15 Oct. 2025
  • The Mexican actor plays revolutionaries in both season 2 of Star Wars series Andor and new movie musical, Kiss of the Spider Woman.
    Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly, 11 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • This funny tale of unlikely heroism can be enjoyed either as a read-aloud or as a confidence booster for newly independent readers.
    Caroline Carlson, Literary Hub, 3 Nov. 2025
  • In 2010, President Barack Obama canceled Bush’s moon-Mars initiative, only to revive work shortly after on the heavylift booster and the crew craft that will be needed for the missions, when lawmakers from space states like Texas and Florida pushed back.
    Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 31 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • While Fury announced his retirement last January, promoter Frank Warren hinted at a Fury comeback with the British fighter hoping to complete a trilogy against the undefeated champion.
    Antonio Losada, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Oct. 2025
  • In the article, Roufus criticized promoters who were focused on profits and lacked the experience to safely sponsor fights.
    Cleo Krejci, jsonline.com, 18 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • The Grand Blanc attack was mentioned briefly on Saturday, Oct 4, at the start of the two-day conference by Elder Gary Stevenson, one of 12 apostles who help lead the church's 17.5 million members worldwide, almost 47,000 of them in Michigan.
    Niraj Warikoo, Freep.com, 5 Oct. 2025
  • Nelson served as an apostle beginning in 1984 and became the church's leader in 2018.
    Mitch Picasso, FOXNews.com, 28 Sep. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Agent provocateur.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/agent%20provocateur. Accessed 7 Nov. 2025.

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