for instance

Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia.

in·stance

(ĭn′stəns)

a. An example that is cited to prove or invalidate a contention or illustrate a point. See Synonyms at example.

b. A case or an occurrence: In all such instances, let conscience be your guide.

2. A step in a process or series of events: You should apply in the first instance to the personnel manager.

a. A suggestion or request: called at the instance of his attorney.

b. Archaic Urgent solicitation or entreaty.

tr.v. in·stanced, in·stanc·ing, in·stanc·es

1. To offer as an example; cite: "I assured her that I was interested in garbage, and instanced the fact that I had once been a garbage inspector myself" (Jane Addams).

2. To demonstrate or show by an example; exemplify: "how absurd it often is to cite a single line from ... a poem for the purpose of instancing the perfection or imperfection of the line's rhythm" (Edgar Allan Poe).

Idiom:

for instance

As an example; for example.

[Middle English instaunce, from Old French instance, request, instant, and from Medieval Latin īnstantia, example, both from Latin, presence, from īnstāns, īnstant-, present; see instant.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Adv.

for instance - as an example; "take ribbon snakes, for example"

e.g., for example

Translations

مَثَلا

například

for eksempel

beispielsweise zum Beispiel

par exemple

til dæmist.d.til að mynda

per esempio

bijvoorbeeld

meselâörneğin

比如

instance

(ˈinstəns) noun

an example, especially of a condition or circumstance. As a social worker, he saw many instances of extreme poverty.

for instance

for example. Some birds, penguins for instance, cannot fly at all.

References in classic literature ?

A new word can be added to an existing language by a mere convention, as is done, for instance, with new scientific terms.

A poker, for instance, is just a poker; we do not call one "John" and another "Peter."

View in context

There are three different ways in which two states may be blended and joined together; for, in the first place, all those rules may be adopted which the laws of each of them have ordered; as for instance in the judicial department, for in an oligarchy the rich are fined if they do not come to the court as jurymen, but the poor are not paid for their attendance; but in democracies they are, while the rich are not fined for their neglect.

View in context

So that the man who should, for instance, go openly and knowingly in opposition to all that list would to your thinking, and indeed mine, too, of course, be an obscurantist or an absolute madman: would not he?

as to affirm, for instance, following Buckle, that through civilisation mankind becomes softer, and consequently less bloodthirsty and less fitted for warfare.

Of course there is no guaranteeing (this is my comment) that it will not be, for instance, frightfully dull then (for what will one have to do when everything will be calculated and tabulated), but on the other hand everything will be extraordinarily rational.

View in context

Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance, the individual man or horse.

For instance, 'man' is predicted of the individual man.

View in context

And yet we could name certain modern churches in London, for instance, to which posterity may well look back puzzled.--Could these exquisitely pondered buildings have been indeed works of the nineteenth century?

View in context

For instance, what has made you go and take the room which you have done, where you will be worried and disturbed, and where you have neither elbow-space nor comfort--you who love solitude, and never like to have any one near you?

View in context

I may add, that as some organisms will breed most freely under the most unnatural conditions (for instance, the rabbit and ferret kept in hutches), showing that their reproductive system has not been thus affected; so will some animals and plants withstand domestication or cultivation, and vary very slightly--perhaps hardly more than in a state of nature.

In animals it has a more marked effect; for instance, I find in the domestic duck that the bones of the wing weigh less and the bones of the leg more, in proportion to the whole skeleton, than do the same bones in the wild-duck; and I presume that this change may be safely attributed to the domestic duck flying much less, and walking more, than its wild parent.