instrumentality

English

instrumentality (countable and uncountable, plural instrumentalities)

(uncountable) The quality or condition of being instrumental; serving a purpose, being useful.
- 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience ‎, London: Folio Society, published 2008, page 294:
  In a later vision the Saviour revealed to her in detail the ‘great design’ which he wished to establish through her instrumentality.
(countable, law) A governmental organ with a specific purpose.
- 1994, Title 17 of the United States Code, §104A(a)(2):
  Any work in which the copyright was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or instrumentality thereof, is not a restored work.
(countable) Something that is instrumental; an instrument.
- 1838, American Anti-Slavery Society, The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4‎:
  He spoke of the various instrumentalities which were now employed for the conversion of the world.
- 1873, Helen Hunt Jackson, Bits About Home Matters‎:
  Delays and failures will only set her to casting about for new instrumentalities.
- 1914, Samuel F. B. Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals‎:
  God works by instrumentalities, and he has wonderfully thus far interposed in keeping evils that I feared in abeyance.