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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
Michiko Kakutani, TIME, 6 June 2024
The president is expected to invoke a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that grants him the authority to restrict immigration and prevent non-immigrant visitors from entering the U.S. to protect the country's interests, NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports.
—Suzanne Nuyen, NPR, 4 June 2024
Not only is Greene’s initial attack about Crockett’s eyelashes racist, during the ensuing discourse, Rep. Paulina Luna, R-Fla., invokes tired racist stereotypes of Black women, specifically the Angry Black Woman trope.
—Megan Thiele Strong, The Mercury News, 24 May 2024
Last year, the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis fired a staffer who made a video of the governor that invoked Nazi ideology.
—Benjamin Oreskes, Los Angeles Times, 23 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for invoke 
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.
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Cite this Entry
“Invoke.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invoke. Accessed 12 Jun. 2024.
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invoke
transitive verb
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