Evocations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A summoning or bringing to mind of certain feelings, memories, or images through various means such as art or literature
2. The act of inspiring a particular response or connection to past experiences or emotions in an audience
3. Referencing or eliciting significant sentiments from personal or cultural histories through evocative techniques or expressions

Etymology: "Evocations" is simply the plural of "evocation," so the more useful story belongs to the root. The noun comes from Middle French "évocation," which in turn draws on the Latin "evocatio," a formation from "evocare," meaning "to call out" or "to summon forth." The Latin verb combined "e-" (out) with "vocare" (to call), the same "voc-" that gives English "vocal," "vocation," and "invoke." Its literal sense was a calling out of something or someone from a place. That literal sense of summoning is still visible in the English word. To evoke something is to call it up from memory or imagination rather than produce it directly, so an evocation is the act of calling up a feeling, image or memory in an audience. Dictionary histories of the English noun are not something I can date precisely here, so the story stops at the French and Latin source, where the word's sense of drawing something out by calling it remains intact.

Synonyms: summons, call, conjuring, recall, remembrance

Antonyms: dismissal, forgetting, disregard