Invocate

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To call upon or appeal to a supernatural being, deity, or spirit for assistance, blessing, or intervention
2. To invoke a supernatural entity or presence refers to the act of calling upon a deity or spirit for help, guidance, or intervention
3. To summon a divine force entails appealing to a higher power for support, blessings, or influence in a matter

Etymology: "Invocate" first appears in English in 1530, borrowed directly from the Latin "invocātus," the past participle of "invocō," meaning "to call upon" or "to call in." The Latin verb is built from "in-," meaning "upon" or "into," and "vocō," meaning "to call," the same root that gives English "vocal" and "vocation." Its close relative, "invoke," arrived from Old French around the same time and took the more everyday path, so the two words are doublets: one came into English through French, the other straight from Latin. The shared Latin ancestor meant a plain summons, and the religious sense of calling on a god or spirit was present from the start. The "-ate" ending is an ordinary verb-forming suffix, the same one found in words like "separate" and "create," which is why the word sounds like a deliberate scholarly borrowing rather than a worn-down folk word.

Synonyms: invoke, call upon, entreat, solicit, appeal to

Antonyms: dismiss, ignore, rebuff, reject, disavow