instruct

From Latin īnstrūctus, perfect passive participle of īnstruō (“I instruct; I arrange, furnish, or provide”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈstɹʌkt/

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈstɹakt/
• Rhymes: -ʌkt

instruct (third-person singular simple present instructs, present participle instructing, simple past and past participle instructed)

1. (transitive) To teach by giving instructions.

   Synonyms: educate, guide

   Listen carefully when someone instructs you how to assemble the furniture.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Supply me with the habit and instruct me
     How I may formally in person bear me
     Like a true friar.

   • 1682, Aphra Behn, The False Count‎, London: Jacob Tonson, act III, scene 2, page 33:

     What a dishonour’s this, to me, to have so Dull a Father, that needs to be instructed in his Duty.

   • 1751, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 156, 14 September, 1751, in Volume 5, London: J. Payne and J. Bouquet, 1752, p. 177,

     the design of tragedy is to instruct by moving the passions,

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “chapter 10”, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:

     […] I should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you.

   • 1974, Robert M Pirsig, chapter 29, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN, part 4, page 353:

     At the Laundromat I instruct Chris on how to operate the drier, start the washing machines […]

2. (transitive) To tell (someone) what they must or should do.

   Synonyms: command, direct, order

   Usage note: "instruct" is less forceful than "order", but weightier than "advise"

   The doctor instructed me to keep my arm immobilised and begin physiotherapy.

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 39, in Vanity Fair , London: Bradbury and Evans , published 1848, →OCLC:

     All the servants were instructed to address her as “Mum,” or “Madam” […]

   • 1989, John Irving, chapter 5, in A Prayer for Owen Meany‎, New York: Ballantine, published 1997, page 195:

     Observing that the Christ Child’s nose was running, she deftly wiped it; then she held the handkerchief in place, while instructing him to “blow.”

3. (transitive) To give (one's own lawyer) legal instructions as to how they should act in relation to a particular issue; thereby formally appointing them as one's own legal representative in relation to it.

   If you're not careful, I'm going to instruct a solicitor over this.

instruct (plural instructs)

1. (obsolete) Instruction.

instruct (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Arranged; furnished; provided.
   • c. 1615, George Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses‎, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 4, p. 62:

     For he had neither ship, instruct with oares,
     Nor men to fetch him from those stranger shores.

2. (obsolete) Instructed; taught; enlightened.
   • 1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained‎, London: John Starkey, Book 1, lines 438-441, p. 24:

     Who ever by consulting at thy shrine
     Return’d the wiser, or the more instruct
     To flye or follow what concern’d him most,
     And run not sooner to his fatal snare?

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