different between provoke vs annoy

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French provoquer, from Old French, from Latin pr?voc?re. Doublet of provocate.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /p???v??k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /p???vo?k/
• Rhymes: -??k

Verb

provoke (third-person singular simple present provokes, present participle provoking, simple past and past participle provoked)

1. (transitive) To cause someone to become annoyed or angry.
   • Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

2. (transitive) To bring about a reaction.
   • 1881, John Burroughs, Pepacton

     To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provokes in his own soul.
3. (obsolete) To appeal.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

Synonyms

• (bring about a reaction): bring about, discompose, egg on, engender, evoke, grill, incite, induce, inflame, instigate, invoke, rouse, set off, stir up, whip up; see also Thesaurus:incite

Derived terms

• provocation
• provocative

Related terms

• evoke
• invoke
• provocateur
• revoke

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English annoien, anoien, enoien, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman anuier, Old French enuier (“to molest, harm, tire”), from Late Latin inodi? (“cause aversion, make hateful”, verb), from the phrase in odi? (“hated”), from Latin odium (“hatred”). Doublet of ennui. Displaced native Middle English grillen (“to annoy, irritate”), from Old English grillan (see grill).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n??/
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

annoy (third-person singular simple present annoys, present participle annoying, simple past and past participle annoyed)

1. (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
   • 1691, Matthew Prior, Pastoral to Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely

     Say, what can more our tortured souls annoy / Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy?

2. (intransitive) To do something to upset or anger someone; to be troublesome.
3. (transitive) To molest; to harm; to injure.

   to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade

   • tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them

Synonyms

• (to disturb or irritate) bother, bug, hassle, irritate, pester, nag, irk
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• please
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Related terms

Translations

Noun

annoy (plural annoys)

1. (now rare, literary) A feeling of discomfort or vexation caused by what one dislikes.
   • 1532 (first printing), Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose:

     I merveyle me wonder faste / How ony man may lyve or laste / In such peyne and such brennyng, / [...] In such annoy contynuely.

   • c. 1610, John Fletcher, “Sleep”:

     We that suffer long annoy / Are contented with a thought / Through an idle fancy wrought: / O let my joys have some abiding!
2. (now rare, literary) That which causes such a feeling.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, King Rchard III, IV.2:

     Sleepe in Peace, and wake in Ioy, / Good Angels guard thee from the Boares annoy [...].

   • 1872, Robert Browning, "Fifine at the Fair, V:

     The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, / The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy [...].

Synonyms

• (both senses) annoyance

Translations

References

• annoy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• annoy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Yonan, anyon, noyan, yanno