Search the Dictionary

By means of an instrument or agency; as means to an end. South. They will argue that the end being essentially beneficial, the means become instrumentally so. Burke.

Usefulness or agency, as means to an end; instrumentality. [R.] Hammond.

Instrumental. [R.]

The act of using or adapting as an instrument; a series or combination of instruments; means; agency. Otherwise we have no sufficient instrumentation for our human use or handling of so great a fact. H. Bushnell.

A performer on a musical instrument; an instrumentalist.

A lustration or purification, especially the purification of the whole Roman people, which was made by the censors once in five years. Hence: A period of five years.

device proposed by a quack. The incentives of agitators, the arts of impostors and the nostrums of quacks. Brougham.

; the pulpit or platform occupied by an orator or public speaker. Myself will mount the rostrum in his favor. Addison.

A portion of dead bone which becomes separated from the sound portion, as in necrosis.

An instrument consisting of a thin metal frame, through which passed a number of metal rods, and furnished with a handle by which it was shaken and made to rattle. It was peculiarly Egyptian, and used especially in the worship of Isis. It is still used in Nubia.

n church or chapel style; -- said of compositions sung in the old church style, without instrumental accompaniment; as, a mass a capella, i. e., a mass purely vocal.

A calculating table or frame; an instrument for performing arithmetical calculations by balls sliding on wires, or counters in grooves, the lowest line representing units, the second line, tens, etc. It is still employed in China.

The sounding-board over a pulpit or rostrum.

The producing of an unintended effect by the glancing of an instrument, as when a shot intended for A glances and strikes B.

Containing abuse, or serving as the instrument of abuse; vituperative; reproachful; scurrilous. "An abusive lampoon." Johnson.

A part performed by instruments, accompanying another part or parts performed by voices; the subordinate part, or parts, accompanying the voice or a principal instrument; also, the harmony of a figured bass. P. Cyc.

A small, portable, keyed wind instrument, whose tones are generated by play of the wind upon free metallic reeds.

An instrument for estimating the amount of acetic acid in vinegar or in any liquid containing acetic acid.

An instrument for ascertaining the strength of acids. Ure.

To own as genuine; to assent to, as a legal instrument, to give it validity; to avow or admit in legal form; as, to acknowledgea deed.