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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.
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
Keith Cooper, Space.com, 28 Dec. 2025
By December, the 27-member bloc invoked the Digital Services Act for the first time by fining X over $140 million.
—David Zimmermann, The Washington Examiner, 28 Dec. 2025
The president also introduced the idea of the chronic trade deficit as a national emergency, using the unequal state of trade between America and its peers as justification to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
—Kate Nishimura, Sourcing Journal, 26 Dec. 2025
The venture capitalist Peter Thiel, for example, has invoked the antichrist in lectures, theorizing that such a figure might wield anti-AI sentiment to amass political power.
—Andrew R. Chow, Time, 23 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for invoke
Cite this Entry
“Invoke.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invoke. Accessed 31 Dec. 2025.
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invoke
transitive verb
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