instrument
Americannoun
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instruments
plural
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a mechanical tool or implement, especially one used for delicate or precision work.
surgical instruments.
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a contrivance or apparatus for producing musical sounds.
a stringed instrument.
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a means by which something is effected or done; agency.
an instrument of government.
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a device for measuring the present value of a quantity under observation.
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a mechanical or electronic measuring device, especially one used in navigation.
landing a plane by instruments.
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a formal legal document, as a draft or bond.
negotiable instruments.
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a person used by another merely as a means to some private end; tool or dupe.
verb (used with object)
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instruments,
present (3rd person singular)
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instrumented,
past participle, past
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instrumenting
present participle
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to equip with instruments, as a machine or manufacturing process.
to instrument a space vehicle.
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to arrange a composition for musical instruments; orchestrate.
noun
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a mechanical implement or tool, esp one used for precision work
surgical instrument
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music any of various contrivances or mechanisms that can be played to produce musical tones or sounds
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an important factor or agency in something
her evidence was an instrument in his arrest
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informal a person used by another to gain an end; dupe; tool
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a measuring device, such as a pressure gauge or ammeter
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a device or system for use in navigation or control, esp of aircraft
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( as modifier )
instrument landing
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a formal legal document
verb
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another word for orchestrate
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to equip with instruments
Usage
What are other ways to say instrument? An instrument is a mechanical contrivance, especially one used for delicate or precision work. When should you use this noun over tool, implement, or utensil? Learn more on Thesaurus.com.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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instrumentsimple
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instrumentssimple
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have instrumentedperfect
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has instrumentedperfect
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am instrumentingprogressive
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are instrumentingprogressive
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is instrumentingprogressive
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have been instrumentingperfect progressive
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has been instrumentingperfect progressive
Past
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instrumentedsimple
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had instrumentedperfect
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was instrumentingprogressive
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were instrumentingprogressive
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had been instrumentingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of instrument
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Latin instrūmentum equipment, equivalent to instrū-, stem of instruere “to equip” ( see instruct) + -mentum -ment
Explanation
An instrument is usually a tool for making music, like a piano or a guitar, but it can also be used for almost any kind of tool or thing you use to get something done. A thermometer is an instrument for measuring temperature. A violin is an instrument used for making music. Recent economic woes were blamed on the abuse of certain financial instruments, which is just a fancy way of saying "deals." Your eye is a very sensitive light-collecting instrument, though you'll need a man-made instrument, like an X-ray telescope, if you want to see light outside of the visible spectrum.
Vocabulary lists containing instrument
Macbeth's "Is this a dagger..." soliloquy
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List 3
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John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961
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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:
The instrument inspired him to write the music for The Smiths' 1984 single Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and its B-side Girl Afraid.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
First is metacognition, which means checking your own instrument.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
One planned instrument, the Autofluorescence Nephelometer, is designed to examine Venus's cloud particles for fluorescence we expect to be associated with organic molecules.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 13, 2026
Coltrane singlehandedly made the soprano saxophone the popular jazz instrument it is today, exceeding Sonny Rollins’s influence on tenor saxophone and replacing Charlie Parker as jazz’s most imitated saxophone player.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
The cowbell, for example, is an instrument that has another purpose besides its musical one.
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
Autocallable notes are structured-debt instruments tied to stocks or an index with underlying equity exposure.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
For more than 17 years, LRO has been circling the Moon while its seven instruments study the landscape, surface composition, temperature, and radiation environment.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
The instruments, which were used during his time with The Smiths and on his forthcoming solo album, went under the hammer as part of Christie's Marr's Guitars: The Johnny Marr Collection sale.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
J&J has been seeking to unload its DePuy Synthes orthopedics business and the hips-and-knee unit, which also makes instruments to repair bones and joints, had been a linchpin of the operation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
What came as a complete surprise were the scores of musical instruments recovered, some of which were unknown to music historians prior to their discovery.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
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
When NASA’s most powerful rocket ever attempts its first flight this month, its highest profile payload will be three instrumented mannequins, setting off on a 42-day journey beyond the Moon and back.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 15, 2022
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
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
