provocation

1. 1.

   unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment

   Synonymsaggravationirritation

   Broaderaggression

   Narroweraggrolast strawtwit
2. 2.

   something that incites or provokes; a means of arousing or stirring to action

   Synonymsincitementincitation

   Broaderpsychic energy

   Narrowersignal
3. 3.

   needed encouragement

   “the result was a provocation of vigorous investigation”

   Synonymsincitement

   Broaderencouragement

   Narrowersubornation

Other forms of provocation

plural

provocations·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about provocation

What does provocation mean?

provocation means "unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in provocation?

provocation has 4 syllables: pro-vo-ca-tion. The stress falls on "ca". In IPA it is /ˌpɹɑvəˈkeɪʃən/.

What is another word for provocation?

Close synonyms include aggravation, irritation, incitement, incitation, incitement. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is provocation a common word?

provocation is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with provocation?

104 words rhyme with provocation. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.