EXAMPLE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Example

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/ɪgzˈæmpəl/ Listen

noun

Example n.

1.

One or a portion taken to show the character or quality of the whole; a sample; a specimen.

2.

That which is to be followed or imitated as a model; a pattern or copy. "For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." "I gave, thou sayest, the example; I led the way."

3.

That which resembles or corresponds with something else; a precedent; a model. "Such temperate order in so fierce a cause Doth want example."

4.

That which is to be avoided; one selected for punishment and to serve as a warning; a warning. "Hang him; he'll be made an example." "Now these things were our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted."

5.

An instance serving for illustration of a rule or precept, especially a problem to be solved, or a case to be determined, as an exercise in the application of the rules of any study or branch of science; as, in trigonometry and grammar, the principles and rules are illustrated by examples.

Synonyms: Precedent; case; instance. Example, Instance. The discrimination to be made between these two words relates to cases in which we give "instances" or "examples" of things done. An instance denotes the single case then "standing" before us; if there be others like it, the word does not express this fact. On the contrary, an example is one of an entire class of like things, and should be a true representative or sample of that class. Hence, an example proves a rule or regular course of things; an instance simply points out what may be true only in the case presented. A man's life may be filled up with examples of the self-command and kindness which marked his character, and may present only a solitary instance of haste or severity. Hence, the word "example" should never be used to describe what stands singly and alone. We do, however, sometimes apply the word instance to what is really an example, because we are not thinking of the latter under this aspect, but solely as a case which "stands before us." See Precedent.

verb

Example v. t. (past & past part. exampled; pres. part. exampling) To set an example for; to give a precedent for; to exemplify; to give an instance of; to instance. (Obs.) "I may example my digression by some mighty precedent." "Burke devoted himself to this duty with a fervid assiduity that has not often been exampled, and has never been surpassed."

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Etymology of 'Example'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Example" Quotes from Famous Books

... Callimachus has been preserved, which is said to have been chanted by the priests of Apollo at Delos, while performing this ceremony of circumambulation, the substance of which is, "We imitate the example of the sun, and ...

— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... of truly Grecian culture and refinement. It is not improbable that he enjoyed also the instructions of Quintilian, who for twenty years taught at Rome that pure and manly eloquence, of which his Institutes furnish at once such perfect rules, and so fine an example. If we admit the Dialogue de Claris Oratoribus to be the work of Tacitus, his beau-ideal of the education proper for an orator was no less comprehensive, no less elevated, no less liberal, than that of Cicero himself; and if his theory of education was, ...

— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... alighting, walked forward to see that their unwelcome attendants quitted them. As the soldiers fell out from their order of march and sat down under the shade of the houses many of the Spaniards with the baggage-train followed their example, and the boys saw the man to whom they had spoken go up to four others, and in a short time these separated themselves from the rest, went carelessly round a corner, and when the order came to continue the march, failed to make their appearance. Their absence passed unnoticed ...

— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... is unbounded, and they put him down (why, it is difficult to say) as the aristocratic, and therefore impartial champion of Demus. Whenever we fell into the bilious moods to which our plebeian nature is addicted, we were gravely admonished of his bright example, and assured that to speak evil of the Republic was the infirmity of vulgar minds. There is, it would appear, a sympathy betwixt "great ones;" a kind of free-masonry betwixt the sovereign people and the British peerage, which neither party suspected ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... union and conflict of two very different human impulses, the one urging men towards mysticism, the other urging them towards science. Some men have achieved greatness through one of these impulses alone, others through the other alone: in Hume, for example, the scientific impulse reigns quite unchecked, while in Blake a strong hostility to science co-exists with profound mystic insight. But the greatest men who have been philosophers have felt the need both of science and of mysticism: the attempt to harmonise the two was what made their life, ...

— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

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