What's the difference between persuade and provoke?

Persuade


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To influence or gain over by argument, advice, entreaty, expostulation, etc.; to draw or incline to a determination by presenting sufficient motives.
  • (v. t.) To try to influence.
  • (v. t.) To convince by argument, or by reasons offered or suggested from reflection, etc.; to cause to believe.
  • (v. t.) To inculcate by argument or expostulation; to advise; to recommend.
  • (v. i.) To use persuasion; to plead; to prevail by persuasion.
  • (n.) Persuasion.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Gordon Brown believes that the fact of the G20 summit has persuaded many tax havens, such as Switzerland and Liechtenstein, to indicate that they will adopt a more open approach.
  • (2) An official from Cafcass, the children and family court advisory service, tried to persuade the child in several interviews, but eventually the official told the court that further persuasion was inappropriate and essentially abusive.
  • (3) She kept it up for three years, until her son's letters finally persuaded her to cut down to one day a week.
  • (4) We simply do whatever nature needs and will work with anyone that wants to help wildlife.” His views might come as a surprise to some of the RSPB’s 1.1 million members, who would have been persuaded by its original pledge “to discourage the wanton destruction of birds”; they would equally have been a surprise to the RSPB’s detractors in the shooting world.
  • (5) That refusal seems to have persuaded Apple's team, which has been core to the development of WebKit since using it for the Safari browser, released in January 2003, to introduce WebKit2 earlier this year which did offer that capability.
  • (6) It seeks to acquaint them with 'ethical' arguments against their work which, because they are simple and plausible, persuade many people.
  • (7) Obama will meet with Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow as well, but US envoy George Mitchell has had no luck in recent weeks trying to persuade Netanyahu to compromise on the settlements.
  • (8) The charity Bite the Ballot , which persuaded hundreds of thousands to register before the last general election, is to set up “democracy cafes” in Starbucks branches, laying on experts to explain how to register and vote, and what the referendum is all about (Bite the Ballot does not take sides but merely encourages participation).
  • (9) The writer John Lanchester concedes that democracies will always need spies, but reading the Snowden documents persuaded him that piecing together habits of thought from internet searches takes things far beyond conventional spying: “Google doesn’t just know you’re gay before you tell your mum; it knows you’re gay before you do.
  • (10) But Richard Hall, director of infrastructure at Consumer Futures, a consumer watchdog, said Ofgem had "produced a lot of evidence that would persuade a third party that there is a trend [of rising prices]".
  • (11) McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate with an influential voice on US foreign affairs, is seen by the Obama administration as a potentially important intermediary in its intensive push to persuade Congress to swing behind the plan for airstrikes .
  • (12) According to Deborah Mattinson, his pollster, Brown " loved slogans and believed them to be imbued with a mystical power capable of persuading the most intransigent voter", and therefore went a bundle on them – not least " A future fair for all ", the surreal dud with which Labour went to the country in 2010, following 2005's equally idiotic " forward not back ".
  • (13) For a while North Korea refused to play, but after delicate negotiations the players were persuaded back on to the pitch and the correct flag was displayed alongside the team photos.
  • (14) When the owners of Manchester City finally managed to persuade Pep Guardiola to oversee the next stage of their masterplan it is fair to say they probably did not expect to be approaching Christmas scuffling with a team of Watford’s limitations for their first league win at home in almost three months.
  • (15) He has some suggestions for what might be done, including easing changing the planning laws to free up parts of the green belt, financial incentives to persuade local authorities to build, and the replacement of the council tax and stamp duty land tax with a new local property tax with automatic annual revaluations.
  • (16) Even if nobody switched party, the general election result would look very different to what’s predicted if millennials could be persuaded to vote at the same rate as pensioners, as polls factor in turnout differences and oversample the elderly accordingly.
  • (17) For some people, free cash will persuade them to take the plunge.
  • (18) The fact that the leave campaign are getting things as straightforward as this wrong should call into judgment the bigger argument about leaving the EU.” He said out campaigners were trying to persuade people to vote for Brexit solely on the back of an issue “that is not true”.
  • (19) We had already persuaded him to give us a little extra time, telling him we would both pay him on a particular day, but when that day rolled around, neither of us had the money.
  • (20) Nonetheless, the NSA persuaded Erwin Griswold, the former dean of Harvard law school, the then solicitor general of the United States, to knowingly lie to the United States supreme court that it was still a secret.

Provoke


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To call forth; to call into being or action; esp., to incense to action, a faculty or passion, as love, hate, or ambition; hence, commonly, to incite, as a person, to action by a challenge, by taunts, or by defiance; to exasperate; to irritate; to offend intolerably; to cause to retaliate.
  • (v. i.) To cause provocation or anger.
  • (v. i.) To appeal. [A Latinism]

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Zayani reportedly cited the political sensitivity of naturalising Sunni expatriates and wanted to avoid provoking the opposition," the embassy said.
  • (2) They can rarely be detected spontaneously but most often are provoked.
  • (3) Lactate-induced anxiety and symptom attacks without panic were seen more often in the groups with panic attacks, but a full-blown panic attack was provoked in only four subjects, all belonging to the groups with a history of panic attacks.
  • (4) It was an artwork that fired the imaginations of 2 million visitors who played with, were provoked by and plunged themselves into the curious atmosphere of The Weather Project , with its swirling mist and gigantic mirrors that covered the hall's ceiling.
  • (5) Following treatment with reserpine or alternatively with a combination of phenothiazines (Randolektil, Majeptil) a drug-induced parkinsonoid reaction was provoked in rats.
  • (6) Studies were conducted in isolated, buffer-perfused rat lungs to determine if prostaglandin (PG) E1 attenuated pulmonary edema provoked by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).
  • (7) It could provoke the gravest risk, that all three rating agencies declare a credit event and then there are big contagion risks for other countries," he said.
  • (8) Carotid nerves block provoked transient ventilatory depression, decreasing VT by 46% and fR by 26%, followed by recovery to steady-state values in VT, fR and PETCO2.
  • (9) The 2nd experiment investigated memory for details of a provoking experience.
  • (10) In normal as well as in cirrhotic subjects somatostatin infusion provoked a marked reduction of the IRI plasma level and this was uninfluenced by subsequent glucagon administration.
  • (11) Koons provoked a bigger stir with the news that he would be showing with gallery owner David Zwirner next year in an apparent defection from Zwirner's arch-rival Larry Gagosian, the world's most powerful art dealer.
  • (12) Pain relieved by antacids, age above 40 years, previous peptic ulcer disease, male sex, symptoms provoked by berries, and night pain relieved by antacids and food were found to predict organic dyspepsia with a sensitivity and specificity of approximately 70%, when applied on the observed material.
  • (13) Monosodium glutamate (MSG) taken per os has been found to stimulate gastric secretion provoked by pentagastrin.
  • (14) The higher degree of tachycardia in conscious dogs provoked by clenbuterol is a result of a reflex reaction to the vasodilation analogous to that of salbutamol.
  • (15) In some of the 10 patients who tolerated cow's milk challenge clinically there was an increase in both IgA- and IgM-containing cells suggestive of a local immunological reaction although no clinical intolerance was provoked and other immunological signs were weak or absent.
  • (16) They can genuinely believe their partner provoked them to commit the abuse, just so they could get them in trouble.
  • (17) After reviewing the immunological anomalies provoked by the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) as well as their implications in pulmonary pathology, the authors enumerate the diagnostic and therapeutic methods currently available in the treatment of patients suffering from AIDS and pulmonary diseases.
  • (18) Coronary spasm was provoked by ergonovine maleate in four of 12 patients in group A (33%) and in three patients in group B (18%).
  • (19) Similar areas provoked by exercise or atrial pacing represent the site of acute ischaemia.
  • (20) Insulin-induced hypoglycemia provokes polyribosome disaggregation and accumulation of monomeric ribosomes in the brain of rats with hypoglycemic paresis and coma.