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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
instrument
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
instrument panel
musical instrument
optical instruments
▪ microscopes and other optical instruments
percussion instruments
▪ a range of percussion instruments
stringed instrument
surgical equipment/instruments/treatment
▪ scalpels and other surgical instruments
wind instrument
woodwind instruments
woodwind instruments such as the flute or saxophone
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
blunt
▪ I sometimes think a blunt instrument would do some good for her.
▪ While the men exchanged blows the girl struck Farini from behind with a blunt instrument.
▪ After a while they kidnap and murder a young boy for kicks, bashing him over the head with a blunt instrument.
▪ The blunt instrument obstinately refused to reveal itself and he doubted if there were any more revelations to be got out of anybody.
▪ This is a very blunt instrument.
▪ The cause of death had been the terrible bludgeoning he had received from a blunt instrument.
▪ She looked around for a blunt instrument.
▪ Wyllie will arrive early in the New Year. Blunt instrument hits Oslo.
capital
▪ In recent years there has been an enormous increase in the range and complexity of capital market instruments.
▪ Legally, such capital instruments are debt and should therefore be disclosed within liabilities.
▪ The accounting policies in respect of capital instruments should be stated.
▪ It does not address accounting for investments in capital instruments issued by other entities. 18.
▪ If a capital instrument contains an obligation to transfer economic benefits the entire instrument should be accounted for as a liability.
▪ Scope Classification of capital instruments Debt Convertible debt 22.
▪ The result of this approach is that most capital instruments are reported as liabilities.
▪ Debt: Capital instruments which are classified as liabilities. 7.
financial
▪ The application manages financial instruments, including treasury bills, short-, medium- and long-term loans and interest rate hedges.
▪ Why not all financial instruments measured at fair value?
▪ The ability to follow every financial instrument on every market for effective asset management.
▪ Merton helped to refine the work and made it more broadly applicable to other financial instruments.
▪ The discount houses attempt to make profits by creating a market in short-term financial instruments.
▪ Other derivatives are complex, high-risk financial instruments.
▪ Not surprisingly, the gray-haired veteran shuns sophisticated financial instruments to hedge against interest-rate increases.
main
▪ The Altimeter will be the main pitch-support instrument in level flight.
▪ The Airspeed Indicator being the main pitch-support instrument in climb or descent.
▪ And some people misguidedly use disagreement with others as the main instrument of asserting their status.
▪ There is a danger that we neglect a profound study of a main instrument, and end up as mediocrities.
▪ The main instruments for tracing buried features using magnetic methods are magnetometers.
▪ Running across the command module in front of the couches was the main instrument and control panel.
musical
▪ When biscuit-tin bashing gets boring, lend your toddler a real musical instrument for a treat.
▪ If you blow through this end, the straw vibrates like the reed in some musical instruments. 3.
▪ As music and musical instruments developed and became more flexible, so did the dance.
▪ I made two announcements: one, that I am getting a musical instrument.
▪ This was one of the first musical instruments ever made.
▪ He would play Joe like a musical instrument.
▪ She can transform oil drums, exhaust pipes and car wheels into fine musical instruments.
new
▪ He collaborated with many mathematicians and inventors in putting new forms of instrument into production.
▪ The new instruments should help push back that frontier of time and distance even further.
▪ Exchange of information on techniques is as important as knowledge of new instruments or accessories.
▪ This new instrument found the first direct evidence of solid matter surrounding stars other than our Sun.
▪ Those who exploited the potential power of the new instrument were recommended a Walter piano, which had a check.
▪ The plan includes major new scientific instruments and industrial plants.
▪ Gibson have also announced some new instruments, including the first Gibson basses ever modelled on the ES-175 jazz guitar body.
▪ The telescope was designed to allow new instruments to be installed as old ones become obsolete.
optical
▪ The first questions Wien asked were related to the resolving power of optical instruments.
▪ Even optical instruments, such as perspective machines, the cameraobscura and the camera lucida, were used sparingly.
▪ This level of magnification shows the eye as an optical instrument.
▪ There is, however, one classical restriction which we must take into account, namely the resolving power of optical instruments.
other
▪ The repo is generally in gilts, although other instruments have also been acceptable.
▪ There were of course occasions when Franz's great sword was laid aside, other instruments being required for the administration of justice.
▪ In addition, there is the growing use of other instruments, either singly or in groups.
▪ Sometimes in a country parish there is no organ or other instrument, let alone some one to play it.
▪ In less conservative congregations, and where they are available, other instruments have their place on occasions.
▪ Next are tables for 48 other instruments for which only fragmentary evidence of original stringing survives.
▪ We had lights but no instruments, other aircraft had instruments but no lights, so we flew close together.
scientific
▪ Glasgow: Clocks and scientific instruments, Wednesday 11am.
▪ Triana has been derided by Republican critics, and its political pedigree is unusual for a scientific instrument.
▪ Calibration and servicing of scientific instruments.
▪ The plan includes major new scientific instruments and industrial plants.
▪ There are many small engineering firms, some specialising in scientific instruments.
▪ Industrial machinery, computer and other electronic equipment, chemicals, scientific instruments and transportation equipment lead the export list.
▪ By next Tuesday, Hubble should have two new scientific instruments and replacements for its failing hardware.
statutory
▪ All that remained was for the Lord Chancellor by statutory instrument to appoint a day for s9 to come into effect.
▪ In order to override that, they intend to introduce a statutory instrument.
▪ Mr. Speaker With permission, I will put together the Questions on the statutory instruments.
▪ A code of practice is not legally enforceable, like a statutory instrument, for example.
▪ Greater control will be achieved by providing that the power is to be exercised by way of statutory instrument.
▪ Appendix 1 lists all the statutory instruments made under the Act for easy reference.
▪ The Statutory Instruments Act 1946 only applies, not unsurprisingly, to statutory instruments.
▪ Simply implementing the Directive by means of a statutory instrument would result in yet another regime relating solely to consumer contracts.
stringed
▪ Writing music, the bottom line is that it's a stringed instrument but rhythmically you are playing a keyboard.
▪ If you have access to stringed instruments, bring them to class and let the students try playing them.
▪ When Cristofori built his pianos of the 1720s, the harpsichord and the clavichord were the usual stringed keyboard instruments.
▪ Many of the stringed instruments imitate the sounds of horses; wind instruments imitate the sounds of birds and other wild animals.
▪ The populations of Kucha were particularly noted for their musical talent where they excelled on flutes and stringed instruments.
▪ The cello has a rich, penetrating sound throughout its range and is the most versatile of the stringed instruments.
▪ Flittern Rattletrap hammered the strings of a low-throated stringed instrument, his feet stamping time.
▪ On the shelves behind were stringed instruments made from wood, leather, and large, hollowed-out seed-pods.
surgical
▪ From its size, the knife must have had a very specific use and may even have been a surgical instrument.
▪ We found medical equipment, surgical instruments, weap-ons, clothing, documents.
▪ Displays of early surgical instruments give a chilling glimpse of the pain the sick must have endured before anaesthetic was invented.
▪ Then she was hired to work at the hospital, sterilizing surgical instruments and assisting elderly patients.
▪ The position of the surgical instrument in the real skull is determined by the sensors in the mechanical arm.
▪ The surgeon uses the tiny camera to guide the surgical instruments in freeing the kidney.
■ NOUN
maker
▪ In 1755 he went to London to train as a mathematical instrument maker.
▪ The choice of materials by instrument makers, however, depends primarily on the local ecosystem.
▪ The instrument maker knows how to choose his materials, and can judge their qualities and defects.
▪ What the instrument maker fashions with his hands, is a direct response to nature, which will he expressed in sound.
▪ Only a particular instrument maker invited to repair the instrument is allowed to work on it.
▪ Arthur had become a professional musical instrument maker.
▪ These trees grow slowly and take decades to reach the maturity, which gives their wood the qualities that instrument makers need.
panel
▪ Something smashed into his instrument panel and thin oil streaked his goggles.
▪ I settled on one of the gauges on the instrument panel in front of me.
▪ The instrument panel looked complicated, but all the switches were neatly marked.
▪ I let go of the intercom switch and looked over the black ledge of the instrument panel.
▪ He hopes, for instance, that instrument panels have not changed much in the last fifty years.
▪ The lights from the instrument panel fell across her skirt.
▪ Church leaders should gather data much as airline pilots read their instrument panel during flight.
▪ Racks of black instrument panels lined with banks of silver toggle switches surround the pilot.
percussion
▪ His first distinctive works were for percussion instruments or pianos prepared with nuts and bolts inserted between the strings.
▪ He bashed about on percussion instruments.
policy
▪ Governments should aim to make their policy instruments as predictable as possible soas to minimize confusion and hence undesirable fluctuations in output.
▪ However the methodologies in assessing soil erosion hazard, as well as policy instruments, may well not be applicable outside the United States.
▪ Rather, they accept existing policy instruments as given and make additions or subtractions from them.
▪ The research will include an analysis of policy instruments and an examination of available information on the take-up of grant schemes.
▪ The government has a number of possible policy instruments which it can use for this purpose.
▪ The policy instruments which have been used to try to achieve this equitable goal have evolved slowly.
▪ What it does rely on is the government's ability to change its policy instruments more quickly than firms can change prices.
precision
▪ A precision instrument whose chief virtues were useless to anyone in this age.
▪ Basingstoke is noted for precision instruments.
▪ Wildland fire is not a precision instrument.
wind
▪ The same held true for mouthpieces for wind instruments and replacement roots for teeth, Sakai explained.
▪ Many of the stringed instruments imitate the sounds of horses; wind instruments imitate the sounds of birds and other wild animals.
▪ Mac had said something about his fondness for wind instruments without actually saying what he played.
▪ Both were playing a traditional wind instrument known as the didgeridoo.
▪ Its high register gives brilliance and point when doubling at the octave phrases allotted to other wind instruments or to the violins.
▪ The pre-Columbian Amerindian civilizations in particular produced a variety of vessel flutes, compound pipes and wind instruments.
▪ Native wind instruments fashioned from tiny straws are sold at a fraction of the cost of matchbox-size ghetto-blasters.
▪ They provided six of the centre's elephants, aged seven to 18, with a variety of percussion and wind instruments.
■ VERB
become
▪ Certain individuals and peoples become instruments of his justice and anger.
▪ Polls have become not only an instrument for taking the momentary public pulse but a servant of political spin.
▪ Light became an instrument with which to measure the world.
▪ Academic knowledge became valuable as an instrument rather than an end in itself.
▪ It has once again become a leading instrument of government, with responsibility for coordination, planning and implementation and conduct of policy.
▪ Plunder thus became an instrument of state.
▪ They have thus become the principal instruments for studying fluctuating flows, in particular the phenomena of transition and turbulence.
play
▪ This pleased me very much because I was longing to hear her play the instrument.
▪ The people roused the protector spirit of the sun, Nga Bal, by singing, dancing, and playing their instruments.
▪ Wind players are listed separately from string players, while those who play continuo instruments and accompany singers form yet another unit.
▪ We asked 100 kids in grades four through seven who played a musical instrument.
▪ I think it is much more valuable to hear and play instruments than to read about them.
▪ On average, the musicians had started learning to play an instrument at age eight.
▪ But there was something in the air, a sad note the weather played upon the instrument of the bone-stretched skin.
use
▪ In the bedroom Sir Richard Croft uses his instruments to bleed her and then muffles his forceps in cloth: does nothing.
▪ Microprocessors are used to program the instruments and make all necessary calculations. 9.
▪ This apparent two-minute discrepancy should not compromise his accuracy, since comparative measurements should not be made using different instruments.
▪ It is wise and economical to use instruments that have already been designed.
▪ I don't believe in just using monetary instruments.
▪ Design and perform some activity that uses the instrument.
▪ The music, using Gamelan instruments, is a pleasure, though it can occasionally obscure the text.
▪ A barrier layer cell has too slow a response time to be used in instruments that have a chopper.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
blunt instrument
▪ After a while they kidnap and murder a young boy for kicks, bashing him over the head with a blunt instrument.
▪ All the injuries were consistent with an enraged and merciless attack with a blunt instrument.
▪ I sometimes think a blunt instrument would do some good for her.
▪ She looked around for a blunt instrument.
▪ The blunt instrument obstinately refused to reveal itself and he doubted if there were any more revelations to be got out of anybody.
▪ The cause of death had been the terrible bludgeoning he had received from a blunt instrument.
▪ This is a very blunt instrument.
▪ While the men exchanged blows the girl struck Farini from behind with a blunt instrument.
instrument/control panel
▪ Dials twitch in the control panel at the sound of it.
▪ He hopes, for instance, that instrument panels have not changed much in the last fifty years.
▪ I settled on one of the gauges on the instrument panel in front of me.
▪ On Windows 95, go to control panel, then keyboard, then languages, then properties, and there choose Dvorak.
▪ Reaching to the control panel, he flipped the auto-pilot to the off position.
▪ That big control panel with all the handles and cranks.
▪ The instrument panel looked complicated, but all the switches were neatly marked.
precision tool/instrument
▪ A precision instrument whose chief virtues were useless to anyone in this age.
▪ Basingstoke is noted for precision instruments.
▪ Wildland fire is not a precision instrument.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Even small children were used as instruments in the regime, encouraged to spy on and report their parents.
▪ I sat in the dentist's chair and looked at the row of instruments beside me.
▪ Spending was once considered the most powerful instrument of government policy.
▪ The instrument measures breathing and blood pressure.
▪ The instrument produces a sound similar to a violin.
▪ The army is an instrument of the government.
▪ The Committee on Ethics in Public Life was regarded by many as being a mere instrument of the government.
▪ The company specializes in the manufacture of high quality writing instruments.
▪ The microscope is perhaps the most widely used scientific instrument.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Instrument

Instrument \In"stru*ment\, v. t.

  1. To perform upon an instrument; to prepare for an instrument; as, a sonata instrumented for orchestra.

  2. To furnish or equip with instruments; to attach instruments to; as, the fighter planes were heavily instrumented; the patient was instrumented to monitor him remotely.

Instrument

Instrument \In"stru*ment\, n. [F. instrument, L. instrumentum. See Instruct.]

  1. That by means of which any work is performed, or result is effected; a tool; a utensil; an implement; a device; as, the instruments of a mechanic; astronomical instruments.

    All the lofty instruments of war.
    --Shak.

  2. A contrivance or implement, by which musical sounds are produced; as, a musical instrument.

    Praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
    --Ps. cl. 4.

    But signs when songs and instruments he hears.
    --Dryden.

  3. (Law) A writing, as the means of giving formal expression to some act; a writing expressive of some act, contract, process, as a deed, contract, writ, etc.
    --Burrill.

  4. One who, or that which, is made a means, or is caused to serve a purpose; a medium, means, or agent; as, their army was primarily an instrument of oppression.

    Or useful serving man and instrument, To any sovereign state.
    --Shak.

    The bold are but the instruments of the wise.
    --Dryden.

    Syn: Tool; implement; utensil; machine; apparatus; channel; agent.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
instrument

late 13c., "musical instrument," from Old French instrument "means, device; musical instrument" (14c., earlier estrument, 13c.) and directly from Latin instrumentem "a tool, apparatus, furniture, dress, document," from instruere "arrange, furnish" (see instruct). Meaning "tool, implement, utensil" is early 14c. in English; meaning "written document by which formal expression is given to a legal act" is from early 15c.

Wiktionary
instrument

n. 1 A device used to produce music. 2 A means or agency for achieving an effect. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To apply measuring devices. 2 (context transitive English) To devise, conceive, cook up, plan. 3 To perform upon an instrument; to prepare for an instrument.

WordNet
instrument
  1. n. a device that requires skill for proper use

  2. the means whereby some act is accomplished; "my greed was the instrument of my destruction"; "science has given us new tools to fight disease" [syn: tool]

  3. a person used by another to gain an end [syn: pawn, cat's-paw]

  4. (law) a document that states some contractual relationship or grants some right [syn: legal document, legal instrument, official document]

  5. the semantic role of the entity (usually inanimate) that the agent uses to perform an action or start a process [syn: instrumental role]

  6. any of various devices or contrivances that can be used to produce musical tones or sounds [syn: musical instrument]

instrument
  1. v. equip with instruments for measuring, recording, or controlling

  2. write an instrumental score for [syn: instrumentate]

  3. address a legal document to

Wikipedia
Instrument (film)

Instrument is a documentary film directed by Jem Cohen about the band Fugazi. Cohen's relationship with band member Ian MacKaye extends back to the 1970s when the two met in high school in Washington, D.C.. The film takes its title from the Fugazi song of the same name, from their 1993 album, In on the Kill Taker.

Editing of the film was done by both Cohen and the members of the band over the course of five years. It was shot from 1987 through 1998 on super 8, 16mm and video and is composed mainly of footage of concerts, interviews with the band members, practices, tours and time spent in the studio recording their 1995 album, Red Medicine.

The film also includes portraits of fans as well as interviews with them at various Fugazi shows around the United States throughout the years. The Instrument Soundtrack by Fugazi was released in conjunction with the film. It consisted primarily of instrumental and unreleased songs (including many demo cuts from End Hits, their next album after the soundtrack).

When asked what the goal was in making Instrument, Cohen responded:

One such misconception is shared in a scene where drummer Brendan Canty tells his bandmates how his sister's boyfriend believes that Fugazi lives in a house together without heat and subsisting on a steady diet of nothing but rice. Cohen has also said that "[o]ne of the reasons why I work with Fugazi and they work with me is that we enjoy traveling through this madness. It's what they write songs about and it's what I try to document in my films."

Notable scenes in the film include Fugazi performing for inmates at Lorton Correctional Facility; singer/guitarist Guy Picciotto's hilarious and astounding performance in a Philadelphia college gym in 1988, where he stuffs himself through a basketball hoop and performs hanging upside down by his legs; and an interview of Guy Picciotto and Ian MacKaye by an 8th grade girl for a Public-access television cable TV show.

Instrument (To Rococo Rot album)

Instrument is the eighth studio album by German band To Rococo Rot. It was released in July 2014 under City Slang Records.

Usage examples of "instrument".

With this passage the deconstructive phase of critical thought, which from Heidegger and Adorno to Derrida provided a powerful instrument for the exit from modernity, has lost its effectiveness.

Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody.

Hurlburt Field a few aerobatics, an instrument approach, and a few landings.

Raoul, as the instrument of his mercy in the affair of the Algerine, and are willing to trust to thee now and always.

Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an empty sanctuary, were at a loss to discover what could be the object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.

Here, again, is another resemblance to the conductor, who can impose his own will on the orchestra, altho he may not be able to play one of the instruments in it, and altho he may be quite incapable of composing.

To accomplish this, we employ an instrument called a galvanometer, or amperemeter, illustrated in Fig.

And in the meantime, with a perversity to confound the Franks, she secured the future of the Angevin empire and supplied the instruments of a diplomacy which, no less than force of arms, was to solidify the whole.

The women had their haire annointed and their heads covered with linnen : but the men had their crownes shaven, which were the terrene stars of the goddesse, holding in their hand instruments of brasse, silver and gold, which rendered a pleasant sound.

Their report was not without foundation, it was apar parent from the outset, for in our examination of the upper levels of the mine, our instruments indicated a vigorous radio activity.

There are those who denounce us openly to their friends, and yet whisper to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object.

Besides their arms, which the legionaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of fortification, and the provision of many days.

The astrophysicist looked up from the instrument console with a boyish grin and rubbed a hand across his blond crewcut.

The aulos was appropriate to certain religious services and to certain festivals, and it had a moderate status in the various contests of the national games, but the great instrument of Greek music, the universal dependence for all occasions, public and private, was the lyre.

There were many surgical instruments in India, For an ancient system like the Ayurveda I doubt if the modern method of teaching would do.