• evoke •
Pronunciation: ee-vok • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: 1. Bring to mind, call forth, bring to consciousness, cause to see or recall, as 'a place that evokes memories'. 2. To cause a reaction, as 'to evoke a smile'. 3. To conjure up, bring forth, as 'to evoke evil spirits'.
Notes: Do not confuse evoke with invoke. We usually invoke something as justification, as 'to invoke a rule' or 'invoke the custom of'. Evoke lacks this intimation. The K changes to C in all derivations, the action noun, evocation, the active adjective, evocative , and the passive adjective, evocable. The verb evocate refers to magical evocation only, as do its personal noun, evocator, and adjective, evocatory.
In Play: The first sense of this word is around us all the time: "The background music in movies is used to evoke the mood of a given scene." The second is less often encountered: "The president's words evoked a storming of the parliament."
Word History: Today's Good Word was borrowed from French évoquer, which came directly from Latin evocare "call out, summon, evoke". Evocare comprises e(x) "out of, (away) from" + vocare "to call", akin to vox, vocis "voice", which became Old French vocal, which turned into Modern French voyelle "vowel". Both were borrowed by English, which reduced the latter to vowel. The Latin root goes back to PIE wekw-/wokw- "to speak", source of a few detectable IE words, like Sanskrit vakti "says, talks", Irish focal "word", and German erwähnen "to mention". (Now a gush of gratitude for a long-time grandmaster of GW suggestions, William Hupy, for spotting the twists and turns in today's tricky Good Word and sharing them with us.)
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