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What is "instant"

Crossword clues for instant

instant
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
instant
I.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
instant fame
▪ The success of her first novel brought her instant fame.
instant messaging
▪ instant messaging services
instant oblivion (=used to say that something or someone is forgotten immediately)
▪ His first album led to instant oblivion.
instant replay
took an instant dislike to (=they disliked each other immediately)
▪ They took an instant dislike to each other .
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
almost
▪ He and Grégoire met, and it was almost instant dislike.
▪ How quickiy we learned to avoid those folks who promise you almost instant wealth by selling you foolproof kits and promises.
▪ His action had been almost instant and she knew he had wanted to beat her instead.
▪ The glue joints made were typical of this type of adhesive - almost instant and relatively brittle.
■ NOUN
access
▪ You will not enjoy absolutely instant access, but the extra interest is worth the wait.
▪ You get instant access 24 hours, seven days a week.
▪ Both require a minimum investment of £1, give instant access and include gifts.
▪ All three pay 6.85 per cent, offer instant access, and welcome deposits from £1.
▪ Other accounts offer better rates, but give you instant access to your cash without penalising you.
▪ Money that you may need in an emergency should go into an instant access account.
▪ These had advantages in handling and in instant access to a desired image without any winding.
▪ There is instant access to funds at each maturity date.
coffee
▪ I regularly pay £5 for 300g of instant coffee.
▪ He tries very slowly to stand up and get to the kitchen to give me some instant coffee.
▪ He then began adding back one food per day and when he included instant coffee it produced another bout of severe depression.
▪ He was advised to cut out all instant coffee from his diet and since then has kept very well by doing so.
▪ I've always got plenty of instant coffee and rapport ... Maybe he was shy.
▪ He could only regard her existential pain as a cup of instant coffee to be sweetened with saccharin.
▪ Widely available since the 1930s, instant coffee is produced commercially by brewing ground freshly roasted coffee to a strong concentrate.
▪ Freeze dried instant coffee is more aromatic than the instant coffee powder and more expensive.
death
▪ The combination of water and electricity means instant death - not a mild shock - death.
▪ The thought of an instant death, chosen in time and manner, seemed to have some minimising effect on that fear.
decision
▪ I certainly wouldn't go into a new business and make instant decisions about who has got to go.
dislike
▪ And to make matters worse I took an instant dislike to the wife.
▪ Feeley took an instant dislike to him.
▪ He and Grégoire met, and it was almost instant dislike.
▪ An interviewer who happens to be very short may take an instant dislike to having a general manager who is much taller.
▪ It had been clear from the start that the spinster had taken an instant dislike to both Ashi and her daughter.
dismissal
▪ An employer need not give any notice if the employee's conduct constitutes gross misconduct justifying instant dismissal.
▪ In itself, the offence justified instant dismissal under company rules.
▪ Auguste was therefore reprieved from instant dismissal from a post he had no idea he was occupying.
▪ For when one is dealing with such volatile temperaments, the slightest thing may result in my instant dismissal.
gratification
▪ It is our need for possession and instant gratification which we pursue with such intensity, whatever the costs.
▪ It takes a lot more work than this for instant gratification.
▪ The message is: we want instant gratification, but we don't think any of you can deliver it.
▪ Forbes is purchasing the same instant gratification at the advice of Carter Wrenn, a media warrior from Sen.
▪ This individual is concerned only with instant gratification.
▪ We live in a society where instant gratification is the norm.
▪ Many ticket buyers want instant gratification.
hit
▪ Meanwhile, the Cheltenham Festival's newest race, the £40,000 added Coral Cup, has been an instant hit with trainers.
▪ Unveiled in 1986, the megaliths were an instant hit.
▪ The Plaza Girls, a troupe of tall dancers that were an instant hit with the public.
▪ Shearer, an instant hit at Blackburn, has yet to convince me.
replay
▪ Along with that, the league should reinstitute the use of instant replay.
response
▪ The instant response was very favourable and next morning the reviews were superb.
solution
▪ But serious conflict can not be managed by way of instant solutions.
▪ There are no magic wands or instant solutions.
▪ We can't promise instant solutions, but we can promise to listen.
▪ This knowledge does not mean instant solutions, however.
▪ Many Sri Lankans are sceptical of the government's instant solution to the murder.
▪ There has never been an instant solution, indeed in some cases there has been no solution at all.
success
▪ Her instant success as a recording artist had, however, crystallised one thought in Kylie's head.
▪ There is no magic formula for instant success.
▪ Published in 1974, Pursuit was an instant success and was subsequently translated into thirteen foreign languages.
▪ But in 1990, Microsoft released, with unprecedented fanfare, Windows 3. 0, and found instant success.
▪ The expectations of his adopted nation were such that nothing other than instant success was going to do.
▪ The subsequent exhibition of the dormeuse at the London Museum was an instant success.
▪ Thus, emphasis must be placed upon gradual acceptance rather than the expectation of instant success.
▪ Those who taste instant success usually falter quickly in the aftermath of their luck.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He took an instant dislike to LeRoy.
▪ The workers are being threatened with instant dismissal.
▪ Underwater cables permitted instant communication between the continents.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Foam-breathing would have many uses, beginning with the use of oxygenated foam for instant well-being.
▪ I would reach for two mugs and two packets of the instant drink mix which was our evening ration.
▪ It was a brilliant move, and one that gave Clinton instant Stature-presidential stature-in the minds of many previous doubters.
▪ Polreis and Kimsey became instant friends, a bond made closer by the fact that both ultimately adopted children.
▪ The Marlins come as close to being instant pudding as almost any professional franchise in history.
▪ We knew that there were no instant or easy solutions to overcome the problems that we faced.
II.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
brief
▪ Suddenly, for one brief instant, all was silence.
▪ In that brief instant we fused.
▪ For the briefest instant there was a look of self-reproach in his eyes.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ It took me an instant to recognize who he was.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ All my resolve during my walks along the Seine to become detached from my family vanished in an instant.
▪ For an instant, he seemed to look at me, too.
▪ He could memorize a page of type or a visual pattern almost in an instant.
▪ The instant she touched it Luce felt the second star dip beneath the pressure of her finger.
▪ The scientists looked at each other in astonishment, and in that instant, Benny bolted.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Instant

Instant \In"stant\, a. [L. instans, -antis, p. pr. of instare to stand upon, to press upon; pref. in- in, on + stare to stand: cf. F. instant. See Stand.]

  1. Pressing; urgent; importunate; earnest.

    Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.
    --Rom. xii. 1

  2. I am beginning to be very instant for some sort of occupation.
    --Carlyle.

    2. Closely pressing or impending in respect to time; not deferred; immediate; without delay.

    Impending death is thine, and instant doom.
    --Prior.

  3. Present; current.

    The instant time is always the fittest time.
    --Fuller.

    Note: The word in this sense is now used only in dates, to indicate the current month; as, the tenth of July instant.

Instant

Instant \In"stant\, adv. Instantly. [Poetic]

Instant he flew with hospitable haste.
--Pope.

Instant

Instant \In"stant\, n. [F. instant, fr. L. instans standing by, being near, present. See Instant, a.]

  1. A point in time; a moment; a portion of time too short to be estimated; also, any particular moment; as, teh situation may change in an instant.

    There is scarce an instant between their flourishing and their not being.
    --Hooker.

  2. A day of the present or current month; as, the sixth instant; -- an elliptical expression equivalent to the sixth of the month instant, i. e., the current month. See Instant, a.,

  3. Syn: Moment; flash; second.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
instant

late 14c., "infinitely short space of time," from Old French instant (adj.) "assiduous, at hand," from Medieval Latin instantem (nominative instans), in classical Latin "present, pressing, urgent," literally "standing near," present participle of instare "to urge, to stand near, be present (to urge one's case)," from in- "in" (see in- (2)) + stare "to stand," from PIE root *sta- "to stand" (see stet). Elliptical use of the French adjective as a noun.

instant

mid-15c., "present, urgent," from Old French instant (14c.), from Latin instantem (nominative instans) "pressing, urgent," literally "standing near" (see instant (n.)). Meaning "now, present" is from 1540s, and led to the use of the word in dating of correspondence, in reference to the current month, often abbreviated inst. and persisting at least into the mid-19c. Thus 16th inst. means "sixteenth of the current month." Sense of "immediately" is from 1590s. Of foods, by 1912. Televised sports instant replay attested by 1965. Instant messaging attested by 1994.

Wiktionary
instant

Etymology 1 n. 1 A very short period of time; a moment. 2 A single, usually precise, point in time. 3 An instant beverage or food, especially instant coffee. 4 A day of the current month (''abbreviated as'': inst.) Etymology 2

a. 1 (context dated English) impending; imminent. 2 (context dated English) urgent; pressing; acute. 3 Occurring immediately; immediate; present. adv. (context poetic English) at once; immediately.

Related phrases:
WordNet
instant

  1. adj. occurring with no delay; "relief was instantaneous"; "instant gratification" [syn: instantaneous, instant(a)]

  2. in or of the present month; "your letter of the 10th inst" [syn: inst]

  3. demanding attention; "clamant needs"; "a crying need"; "regarded literary questions as exigent and momentous"- H.L.Mencken; "insistent hunger"; "an instant need" [syn: clamant, crying, exigent, insistent]

instant

  1. n. a very short time (as the time it takes the eye blink or the heart to beat); "if I had the chance I'd do it in a flash" [syn: blink of an eye, flash, heartbeat, jiffy, split second, trice, twinkling, wink, New York minute]

  2. a particular point in time; "the moment he arrived the party began" [syn: moment, minute, second]

Wikipedia
Instant

An instant is an infinitesimal moment in time, a moment whose passage is instantaneous.

The continuous nature of time and its infinite divisibility was addressed by Aristotle in his Physics, where he wrote on Zeno's paradoxes. The philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell was still seeking to define the exact nature of an instant thousands of years later.

In physics, a theoretical lower-bound unit of time called the Planck time has been proposed, that being the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length. The Planck time is theorized to be the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible, roughly 10 seconds. Within the framework of the laws of physics as they are understood today, for times less than one Planck time apart, one can neither measure nor detect any change. It is therefore physically impossible, with current technology, to determine if any action exists that causes a reaction in "an instant", rather than a reaction occurring after an interval of time too short to observe or measure.

, the smallest time interval that was directly measured was on the order of 12 attoseconds (12 × 10 seconds), about 10 times larger than the Planck time.

Instant (album)

Instant is a double compact disc by the Dutch experimental post-punk band The Ex. The band recorded the album in conjunction with many guest musicians, notably members of Holland's Instant Composers Pool (ICP) for whom the album is partially named, the other part being that the Dutch term for " free improvisation" literally translates to "instant composition."

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "instant".

As the Abyssinian tumbled from his saddle the possibility of escape which was represented by the riderless horse electrified the ape-man to instant action.

And with a strange shock he suddenly realized that he was, at this instant, for the first time, seeing the being who lay beside him in the dark through the mental eyes of a body which itself had been born in an Afric forest.

An unseen hand must have given a signal, for in the next instant they were all agallop again, sundering on amid the rising dust.

I would relieve you in an instant if your daughters were ugly, but as it is they are pretty, and that alters the case.

The two women had taken an instant dislike to one another upon meeting many years before and that dislike had grown steadily worse since Amala had become the consort of Commodore Lexis, the OIC of the Ministry of Public Education.

Most of the hysterical antipollution Instant Experts so dearly love their personal wheels that they forgive their dear beasts any nasty stink they may produce.

The bodies of the ants began to pile up and for a fleeting instant, Felix thought that they would get them all by killing the handful that could squeeze through effectively.

There was a short struggle at the surface, and then a swirl of waters, a little eddy, and a burst of bubbles soon smoothed out by the flowing current marked for the instant the spot where Tarzan of the Apes, Lord of the Jungle, disappeared from the sight of men beneath the gloomy waters of the dark and forbidding Ugambi.

This time everything went well, but Sandy Apgar was near at hand, though out of sight of the camera, to be ready to jump on the instant, if the horses showed any signs of fright.

When Apollyon met Christian he was not in doubt for an instant, for the monster was hideous to behold: he had scales like a fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, out of his belly came fire and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion.

The three men looked at it, appraisingly, and all saw it at the same instant: in the middle of the forehead, the eyeless head showed an indentation.

CY Aquarii, which had been a soft white patch, became for an instant a tiny bright point of agony.

He remembered how she had looked at Ardoise in that instant when she thought Jai was giving her the Skolian.

For an instant, Asherah disgusted herself by throwing up her arms, as if they could protect her foolish skull from any chunks of rock that might shake loose from the ceiling.

In that instant, Atlee realized that The Shadow had not found opportunity to draw a gun.