Verb

(provok)

to cause someone to become annoyed or angry.

Don't provoke the dog; it may try to bite you.

* Bible, Eph. vi. 4

Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.

to bring about a reaction.

* J. Burroughs

To the poet the meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it provokes in his own soul.

*{{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=November 12 , author= , title=International friendly: England 1-0 Spain , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Spain were provoked into a response and Villa almost provided a swift equaliser when he rounded Hart but found the angle too acute and could only hit the side-netting.}}

(obsolete) To appeal.

(Dryden)

Verb

(lb) To try to find, to look for, to search.

:

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.

(label) To inquire for; to ask for; to solicit; to beseech.

:

*Bible, (w) xi. 16

*:Others, tempting him, sought of him a sign.

*1960 , (Lobsang Rampa), :

*:“My, my! It is indeed a long way yet, look you!” said the pleasant woman of whom I sought directions.

(lb) To try to acquire or gain; to strive after; to aim at.

:

*1880 , , :

*:But persecution sought the lives of men of this character.

*1886 , Constantine Popoff, translation of (Leo Tolstoy)'s :

*:I can no longer seek fame or glory, nor can I help trying to get rid of my riches, which separate me from my fellow-creatures.

*

*:Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.

To go, move, travel (in a given direction).

:

*, Bk.V:

*:Ryght so he sought towarde Sandewyche where he founde before hym many galyard knyghtes

(lb) To try to reach or come to; to go to; to resort to.

*:

*:Seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

*1726 (tr.), (Alexander Pope), ''(Homer)'s (Odyssey), Book II, line 33

*:Since great Ulysses sought the Phrygian plains