provocative
adjEtymology
Borrowed from Middle French provocatif, and its source, Late Latin provocativus, from Latin provocare.
- derived from provocare
- borrowed from provocativus
- borrowed from provocatif
Definitions
Serving or tending to elicit a strong, often negative sentiment in another person
Serving or tending to elicit a strong, often negative sentiment in another person; exasperating.
Serving or tending to excite, stimulate or arouse sexual interest
Serving or tending to excite, stimulate or arouse sexual interest; sexy.
Provoking or triggering any response.
- [I]t is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. At the bottom, however, there is a pleasant public; whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air is provocative of thirst.
- And the ‘wailing noise,’ which had induced the prosaic, indurated London cabman to get twice off his box to see what was the matter, what anguish had been provocative of that?
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
Something that provokes an appetite, especially a sexual appetite
Something that provokes an appetite, especially a sexual appetite; an aphrodisiac.
- She used by way of Provocative, to read the wanton Verses of her Paramour in the day time [...].
- In Turkey, Iran, and Syria salep is popular as a restorative and also as a provocative to amatory activity.
The neighborhood
- neighborprovoke
- neighborprovocation
- neighborprovocator
- neighborprovocateur
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at provocative. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at provocative. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
9 hops · closes at provocative
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA