invocation

—invocatory /in vok"euh tawr'ee, -tohr'ee/, adj.

/in'veuh kay"sheuhn/, n.

1. the act of invoking or calling upon a deity, spirit, etc., for aid, protection, inspiration, or the like; supplication.

2. any petitioning or supplication for help or aid.

3. a form of prayer invoking God's presence, esp. one said at the beginning of a religious service or public ceremony.

4. an entreaty for aid and guidance from a Muse, deity, etc., at the beginning of an epic or epiclike poem.

5. the act of calling upon a spirit by incantation.

6. the magic formula used to conjure up a spirit; incantation.

7. the act of calling upon or referring to something, as a concept or document, for support and justification in a particular circumstance.

8. the enforcing or use of a legal or moral precept or right.

[1325-75; ME invocacio(u)n < L invocation- (s. of invocatio). See INVOCATE, -ION]

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▪ prosody

      a convention of classical literature and of epics (epic) in particular, in which an appeal for aid (especially for inspiration) is made to a muse or deity, usually at or near the beginning of the work. Homer's Odyssey, for instance, begins

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven

far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel.

Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,

many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,

struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.

      The word is from the Latin invocatio, meaning “to summon” or “ to call upon.”

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