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Instrument   /ˈɪnstrəmənt/   Listen
noun
Instrument  n.  
1.
That by means of which any work is performed, or result is effected; a tool; a utensil; an implement; a device; as, the instruments of a mechanic; astronomical instruments. "All the lofty instruments of war."
2.
A contrivance or implement, by which musical sounds are produced; as, a musical instrument. "Praise him with stringed instruments and organs." "But signs when songs and instruments he hears."
3.
(Law) A writing, as the means of giving formal expression to some act; a writing expressive of some act, contract, process, as a deed, contract, writ, etc.
4.
One who, or that which, is made a means, or is caused to serve a purpose; a medium, means, or agent; as, their army was primarily an instrument of oppression. "Or useful serving man and instrument, To any sovereign state." "The bold are but the instruments of the wise."
Synonyms: Tool; implement; utensil; machine; apparatus; channel; agent.


verb
Instrument  v. t.  
1.
To perform upon an instrument; to prepare for an instrument; as, a sonata instrumented for orchestra.
2.
To furnish or equip with instruments; to attach instruments to; as, the fighter planes were heavily instrumented; the patient was instrumented to monitor him remotely.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Instrument" Quotes from Famous Books



... way to him. He wrote down the names of the conspirators she told him of having seen in Normandy, and he told her he would swiftly have them guillotined. The assurance had scarcely left his lips when in an instant she thrust the instrument of death through his heart. She repudiated the stigma of being thought a murderess, and believed that her act would be the means of saving thousands of lives. She was dragged through the streets, taken ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the last hour these confederates wrought upon their supple instrument, and bent him to their will; and their tool in turn had all else at his mercy. Pompeius addressed the senators, and, well trained by his guardians, spoke with brutal frankness to those who had ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... full to make further suggestions. Organized into a tabloo, with the constitooshun in one hand (wich beloved instrument kivers a great deal of ground), a scar-bangled spanner in the other, and a tramplin on a bloo coat wich I stript orf uv a returned nigger solger wich wuz sick, I exultinly exclaim, "The Union ez it is is ez good ez the Union ez it ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... and some of fern-root, which serves them for bread. On, farther search, we found more shoes, and a hand, which we immediately knew to have belonged to Thomas Hill, one of our fore-castle men, it being marked T.H. with an Otaheite tattow-instrument. I went with some of the people a little way up the woods, but saw nothing else. Coming down again, there was a round spot covered with fresh earth, about four feet diameter, where something had been buried. Having no spade, we began to dig with a cutlass; and in the mean time I launched the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... of that thing. In things that move and are moved, a threefold order is found. In the first place, the end moves the agent: and the principal agent is that which acts through its form, and sometimes it does so through some instrument that acts by virtue not of its own form, but of the principal agent, and does no more than execute the action. Accordingly there are things that move themselves, not in respect of any form or end naturally inherent in them, but only in respect of the executing of the movement; the form by ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas


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