| Meaning | Serving or tending to provoke, excite, or stimulate; stimulating / stimulating discussion or exciting controversy. |
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| Examples | - "a provocative remark"
- "a provocative smile"
- "provocative Irish tunes which...compel the hearers to dance"- Anthony Trollope
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| Narrower | agitative, agitating, provoking | Causing or tending to cause anger / anger or resentment |
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| challenging, intriguing | disturbingly provocative |
| charged | capable of producing violent emotion or arousing controversy |
| incendiary, incitive, inflammatory, instigative, rabble-rousing, seditious | Arousing to action or rebellion |
| rousing | rousing to activity or heightened action as by spurring or goading |
| See also | exciting | creating or arousing excitement |
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| Opposite | unprovocative, unprovoking | not provocative |
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| Spanish | provocador, provocativo |
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| Catalan | provocador, provocatiu |
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| Adverbs | provocatively | in a provocative manner |
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| Verbs | provoke | provide the needed stimulus for |
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| provoke | call forth (emotions, feelings, and responses) |
| provoke | annoy continually or chronically |
