Search the Dictionary

An explosion or sudden report made by the instantaneous decomposition or combustion of unstable substances' as, the detonation of gun cotton.

two images are presented to the eye, moving in opposite directions, and coinciding at the instant the sun's center is on the meridian.

immure a subject in defiance of the writ of habeas corpus . . . the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news. Macaulay. Try whether she could electrify Mr. Grandcourt by mentioning it to him at table. G. Eliot.

considered as described by a moving point, or curve, or surface, the latter being at any instant called an element of the former.

particularly the difference, in an average of a large number of observation, between the instant when an observer notes a phenomenon, as the transit of a star, and the assumed instant of its actual occurrence; or, relatively, the difference between these instants as noted by two observers. It is usually only a fractio…

in the first point of Libra. -- Equinoctial time (Astron.) reckoned in any year from the instant when the mean sun is at the mean vernal equinoctial point.

A contrivance for obtaining a light instantaneous, as a lucifer match. Brande & C.

At any or all times; every instant. [R.] "Eternal law is silently present everywhere and everywhen." Carlyle.

erence; as, files of letters or of newspapers; this mail brings English files to the 15th instant.

To break forth, as a sudden flood of light; to burst instantly and brightly on the sight; to show a momentary brilliancy; to come or pass like a flash. Names which have flashed and thundered as the watch words of unumbered struggles. Talfourd. The object is made to flash upon the eye of the mind. M. Arnold. A thought f…

Hastily; immediately; instantly; on the spot; hotfloot. Gower. Custance have they taken anon, foothot. Chaucer.

us prank; a vagary or caprice. She is restless and peevish, and sometimes in a freak will instantly change her habitation. Spectator.

To move quickly, appearing and disappearing rapidly; to be visible only for an instant at a time; to move interruptedly; to twinkle. And all along the forum and up the sacred seat, His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet. Macaulay.

at slips continuously on another fixed curve, the movable curve having no rotation at any instant.

Not deferred by an interval of time; present; instant. "Assemble we immediate council." Shak. Death . . . not yet inflicted, as he feared, By some immediate stroke. Milton.

Without interval of time; without delay; promptly; instantly; at once. And Jesus . . . touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Matt. viii. 3.

The single instantaneous stroke of a body in motion against another either in motion or at rest.

Incontinently; instantly immediately. [Obs.] He says he will return incontinent. Shak.

The act or quality of being instant or pressing; urgency; solicitation; application; suggestion; motion. Undertook at her instance to restore them. Sir W. Scott.

To occur, fall, or come between, points of time, or events; as, an instant intervened between the flash and the report; nothing intervened ( i. e., between the intention and the execution) to prevent the undertaking.