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Definitions

instrument

[in-struh-muhnt] / ˈɪn strə mənt /




Usage

What are other ways to say instrument? An instrument is anything used in doing a certain type of work or producing a certain result, especially such as requires delicacy, accuracy, or precision: surgical or musical instruments. A tool is a contrivance held in and worked by the hand, for assisting the work of (especially) mechanics or skilled laborers: a carpenter's tools. An implement is any tool or contrivance designed or used for a particular purpose: agricultural implements. A utensil is especially an article for domestic use: kitchen utensils. 

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

He has said that songs came to him while he was staring out windows without an instrument in his hand.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 8, 2026

The instrument was designed primarily to search for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, one of the leading candidates proposed to explain dark matter.

From Science Daily Sep. 4, 2026

Polling is an imperfect instrument, and asking voters whether they favor a given candidate or policy doesn’t always tell you why they feel the way they do.

From Slate Sep. 2, 2026

If a charted instrument falls below that line after an extended period above it, that can be viewed as a warning that the trend may have flipped from rising to falling.

From MarketWatch Sep. 1, 2026

Then play the leitmotif on an instrument that helps describe that character.

From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin

After last year’s surge, executives urged local government officials to liaise with their Chinese counterparts across the border to help install early-warning instruments upstream that could save lives, but achieved no breakthrough, he said.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 9, 2026

Phair is at home too, makeup on and hair straightened, various musical instruments on the wall behind her.

From Los Angeles Times Sep. 3, 2026

Ms. Badu and Mr. Maman share production duties and she is credited with playing several instruments, arranging and mixing, so the album’s overall sound seems like a true collaboration.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 1, 2026

For the remainder of its three-month commissioning period, scientists and engineers will carefully test and calibrate Roman's instruments.

From Science Daily Aug. 31, 2026

Malone’s instruments, and Malone’s records, were the most reliable sources of information.

From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone

The Blue Origin spacecraft will also carry an instrumented lunar surface spacesuit mass simulator.

From Science Daily Jul. 23, 2026

Then we browsed the For You page feed for each sockpuppet, recording what we saw via WebArchive.page, a specially instrumented web browser that archives all the data involved in a browsing session locally.

From Washington Post Mar. 30, 2023

Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands, a U.S. naval facility, is the world's largest instrumented, "multi-dimensional" testing and training missile range, according to the U.S.

From Fox News Feb. 22, 2022

The initial design for the lab, to be built over the next 5 years at the University of Idaho, calls for 24 richly instrumented soil columns topped with airtight chambers for vegetation.

From Science Magazine Oct. 12, 2021

We are unlikely to determine the answer to this question without landing instrumented space vehicles on the Titanian surface.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

“We are instrumenting the car in a way that is overloading the driver just like we were overloading the helicopter pilots,” said Strayer, director of the university’s Center for the Prevention of Distracted Driving.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 6, 2022

This can be a result of budgetary constraints, the difficulty of instrumenting treacherous volcanoes and, in some cases, red tape preventing the placement of sensors in wilderness areas.

From New York Times Nov. 9, 2021

“And we need to rethink what this instrumenting of the world — all that data being generated and collected — means for privacy and how all this data is used.”

From New York Times Aug. 4, 2015

Yet little has been done to probe the underlying crust and mantle, mainly because instrumenting the entire state is so expensive.

From Scientific American Nov. 5, 2013

Niels and I get to work carefully instrumenting the sleep logger and attaching it to the bird.

From New York Times Apr. 15, 2011




Vocabulary lists containing instrument


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