Evoke or invoke?
evoke is a verb meaning “To call out; to draw out or bring forth”; invoke is a verb meaning “To call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) invoke is about as common as evoke.
What is the difference between evoke and invoke?
| evoke | invoke | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb |
| Meaning | To call out; to draw out or bring forth To cause the manifestation of something (emotion, picture, etc.) in someone's mind or imagination | To call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance To solicit, petition for, appeal to a favorable attitude |
| Example | Being here evokes long forgotten memories | The envoy invoked the King of Kings's magnanimity to reduce his province's tribute after another drought |
| Forms | evokes, evoking, evoked | invokes, invoking, invoked |
| Pronunciation | /ɪˈvəʊk/ /ɪˈvoʊk/ | /ɪnˈvoʊk/ /ɪnˈvəʊk/ |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words | 2.1 times per million words |
Sources: evoke and invoke in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of evoke and invoke
evoke
- 1
To call out; to draw out or bring forth
- 2
To cause the manifestation of something (emotion, picture, etc.) in someone's mind or imagination
Being here evokes long forgotten memories
- 3
To elicit a response
invoke
- 1
To call upon (a person, a god) for help, assistance or guidance
- 2
To solicit, petition for, appeal to a favorable attitude
The envoy invoked the King of Kings's magnanimity to reduce his province's tribute after another drought
- 3
To call another ship
- 4
To call to mind (something) for some purpose
- 5
To appeal for validation to a (notably cited) authority
In certain Christian circles, invoking the Bible constitutes irrefutable proof
- 6
To conjure up with incantations
This satanist ritual invokes Beelzebub
- 7
To bring about as an inevitable consequence
Blasphemy is taboo as it may invoke divine wrath
- 8
To cause (a program or subroutine) to execute
Interactive programs let the users enter choices and invoke the corresponding routines
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, evoke or invoke?
evoke appears 1.9 times per million words; invoke 2.1 times per million words.
evoke 1.9 times per million wordsinvoke 2.1 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search evoke vs invoke?
“evoke vs invoke” is searched about 8,100 times a month on Google and 230 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“invoke vs evoke”, “evoke or invoke”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.