instance
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɪnstəns/
Forms: form: instances
form: enstaunce
form: instaunce
Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French instance, from Latin īnstantia (“a being near, presence, also perseverance, earnestness, importunity, urgency”), from īnstāns (“urgent”); see instant.
Senses: examples: text: I know one very well alied, to whom, at the instance of a brother of his[…], I spake to that purpose[…].
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: […]undertook at her instance to restore them.
ref: 1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:
text: It was settled, as long ago as the first Congress, at the instance of Madison, then in the Senate, and by the deciding vote of John Adams, then Vice-President, that even where the advice and consent of the Senate was necessary to the appointment of an officer, the President had the absolute power to remove him without consulting the Senate.
ref: 1916, William Howard Taft, Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers, New York: Columbia University Press, →OCLC, →OL, page 56:
glosses: Urgency of manner or words; an urgent request; insistence.
examples: text: It sends some precious instance of itself/ After the thing it loves.
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]:
glosses: A token; a sign; a symptom or indication.
examples: text: The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
glosses: That which is urgent; motive.
examples: text: The reason that I gather he is mad, Besides this present instance of his rage, Is a mad tale he told to day at dinner […]
ref: c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
glosses: A piece of evidence; a proof or sign (of something).
examples: text: The Statutes, or Acts of Parliament themſelves. Theſe ſeem, as if in the Time of Edw[ard] I. they were drawn up into the Form of a Law in the firſt Inſtance, and ſo aſſented to by both Houſes, and the King, as may appear by the very Obſervation of the Contexture and Fabrick of the Statutes of thoſe Times.
ref: 1713, [Matthew Hale], “Concerning the Distribution of the Laws of England into Common Law, and Statute Law. And First, Concerning the Statute Law, or Acts of Parliament.”, in The History of the Common Law of England: […], [London]: […] J[ohn] Nutt, assignee of Edw[ard] Sayer Esq; for J. Walthoe, […], →OCLC, page 14:
glosses: Occasion; order of occurrence.
examples: August 30, 1706, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, at the funeral of Mr. Tho. Bennet
most remarkable instances of suffering
sometimes we love those that are absent, saith Philostratus, and gives instance in his friend Athenodorus, that loved a maid at Corinth whom he never saw […]
glosses: A case offered as an exemplification or a precedent; an illustrative example.
examples: text: One's own death is an 'accidental' event, simply another instance of the general rule that human beings die.
ref: 2006, Robert Spaemann, Persons: The Difference Between 'someone' and 'something', page 115:
text: If you choose to drink again the best way to avoid another instance of withdrawal is to avoid drinking two days in a row.
ref: 2010, Kenneth Anderson, How to Change Your Drinking: a Harm Reduction Guide to Alcohol, page 59:
text: The organisations claim fraudsters are targeting properties belonging to both individuals and companies, in some instances using forged documents.
ref: 2010 October 11, Mark King, “Homeowners warned to be vigilant as identity and registration fraud rises”, in The Guardian:
glosses: One of a series of recurring occasions, cases, essentially the same.
examples: text: Some compilers will allow statics to be inlined, but then incorrectly create multiple instances of the inlined variable at run-time.
ref: 2000, Dov Bulka, David Mayhew, Efficient C++: Performance Programming Techniques, page 149:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A specific occurrence of something that is created or instantiated, such as a database, or an object of a class in object-oriented programming.
examples: text: As long as the most difficult instance you've tried is Gnomeregan, you're never going to be credible talking about 'difficult encounters'.
ref: 2006 September 1, Dan, “Re: DPS Classes: Why should I heal you?”, in alt.games.warcraft (Usenet):
text: For example, when a team of five players enters the Sunken Temple instance in World of Warcraft, they will battle many monsters, but they will not encounter other players even though several teams of players may be experiencing the Sunken Temple at the same time.
ref: 2010, William Sims Bainbridge, Online Multiplayer Games, Morgan & Claypool, →ISBN, page 26:
text: Beating a difficult instance becomes second nature after running through it…a few times, with good leaders knowing exactly what to do and how to co-ordinate member actions.
ref: 2012, anonymous gamer quoted in Andrew Ee & Hichang Cho, "What Makes an MMORPG Leader? A Social Cognitive Theory-Based Approach to Understanding the Formation of Leadership Capabilities in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games", Eludamos, volume 6, page 31
glosses: A dungeon or other area that is duplicated for each player, or each party of players, that enters it, so that each player or party has a private copy of the area, isolated from other players.
examples: text: The instance is created for the group that enters it.
ref: 2005 January 11, Patrick B., “Re: Instance dungeons”, in alt.games.warcraft (Usenet):
text: As soon as the first player enters (spawns) a new instance, it appears that the loottable is somehow chosen.
ref: 2005 December 6, Rene, “Re: Does group leader affect drops?”, in alt.games.warcraft (Usenet):
text: A castle on the eastern edge of the island spawns a new instance whenever a party of players enters.
ref: 2010, Anthony Steed, Manuel Fradinho Oliveira, Networked Graphics: Building Networked Games and Virtual Environments, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 398:
glosses: An individual copy of such a dungeon or other area.
examples: text: To collect the messages, we select the mstdn.jp as the target instance. The mstdn.jp is one of the major Mastodon instances that has 123,331 users and connects to the 2415 other instances at 26 Feb 2017.
ref: 2017, Masaki Kohana et al., “A Topic Trend on P2P Based Social Media”, in Leonard Barolli, Makoto Takizawa, Tomoya Enokido, editors, Advances in Network-Based Information Systems: The 20th International Conference on Network-Based Information Systems (NBiS-2017), page 1140:
text: In a poll I conducted on Mastodon, 42% of the 674 respondents said that they had reported something, whether it had been a spam account or hateful content, to their instance's moderator.
ref: 2022, Derek Caelin, “Decentralized Networks vs The Trolls”, in Hoda Mahmoudi, Kate Seaman, Michael H. Allen, editors, Fundamental Challenges to Global Peace and Security: The Future of Humanity, page 157:
text: Every Mastodon instance (neighborhood) has a code of conduct that you have to agree to before you join (move in).
ref: 2023, Chris Minnick, Michael McCallister, Mastodon for Dummies, page 14:
glosses: An independent server on a decentralised social network, such as Mastodon.
Derived terms: at the instance of
counterinstance
court of first instance
court of second instance
for instance
instance in
instance variable
instantiation
in the first instance
in this instance
noninstance
Related terms: word: instancy
word: instant
word: instantaneous
word: instantial
word: instantiate
word: instantly
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
sciences
physical-sciences
natural-sciences
word: closure
word: class
word: object