Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To represent (an abstract concept) by a concrete or tangible example: "Two apples ... both instantiate the single universal redness” ( J. Holloway).
WordNet 3.0
- v. find an instance of (a word or particular usage of a word)
- v. represent by an instance
Etymologies
- From Latin instāntia + -ate. (Wiktionary)
- Latin īnstantia, example; see instance + -ate1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“What if writing test helpers requires instantiating dependencies that are difficult to instantiate, which is why you haven't bothered writing tests to begin with?”
“I use the word "instantiate" because the older word "manufacture" has the wrong etymology.”
“Associated with the class are one or more methods and fields that are implemented in a specific language such as instantiate a class, you create an object (something real that can be executed in the computer).”
SearchWinIT: News on enterprise Windows platforms and applications
“Every type is assigned a number and then those numbers are used to 'instantiate' those types, by giving offsets/sizes of serialized blobs.”
“Many thanks to Assistant Professor Rob Rupert for trying to "instantiate" this pitiful thing that he calls "philosophy.”
“instantiate" files; global information connectivity, such as libraries; media connectivity; and a target price of $500.”
“Kloeckner: One should really instantiate clouds with the workloads that you run on them in mind.”
The GigaOM Interview: Kristof Kloeckner, CTO of IBM Cloud Computing
“The constellations wheel; the sun arises in the morn and sets; so each Platonic form begets its end, instantiate as one.”
“If it's someone who is supposed to have instantiate the best of literature for children -- not just great reading, but great writing -- and someone who is supposed to go argue with the powers that be on behalf of children and literature -- then pick someone like Katherine Patterson.”
“If you for some reason believe that only a single mathematical function can instantiate fairness, make it an equation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘instantiate’.
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EN - fine scholarly language
exhort, accretion, twenty-nine, atrophy, additive, brilliantly, interreligious, empiricism, pathologic, limitless, half-century, vigilant and 488 more...
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webdev
random webdev lingo used primarily in computer programming.
( open list, randomness, technical jargon, geek speak )
more:
ajax, user, admin, frontend, backend, database, sql, protocol, call, dom, layout, ui and 439 more... -
ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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Zooey's list
cosmology, consummate, demiurge, paradisiacal, reconnaissance, intransigent, otiose, zeitgeist, coalesce, zeitgeber, absolve, abstruse and 105 more...
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My GRE word list
polemic, ad hominem, fallacious, comity, paucity, contrite, prosaic, veracious, laconic, pugnacious, alacrity, gregarious and 176 more...
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danallison's Words
polysemy, self-reliance, savor, amenities, vintage, proverbial, colloquial, assemblage, ubiquitous, jocular, prosaic, perambulation and 443 more...
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Another day, a whole nother list
rump, spot on, flank, outflank, rank, bedeck, leafhopper, apocope, academic, set-to, point of no return, cloy and 210 more...
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Classical (Greco-Roman)
Via the classical world.
abhor, entrails, spawn, forge, gorge, profound, assail, sarcophagus, pyre, adamant, attest, salient and 80 more...
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inacrateofnectarines
sounds as good as it means
dreamscape, wasteland, camber, eldritch, fiasco, shroud, verisimilitude, aubergine, attenuate, lavalier, calibrate, instantiate and 84 more...
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jough's Words
insouciant, ubiquitous, eleven, approximately, gotham, schadenfreude, desultory, batman, abattoir, lugubrious, suave, scintilla and 44 more...
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verbs
individualize, eroticize, propense, instantiate, minify, spritzes, somersault, graffitied, fabulize, genuflect, traipse, concatenate and 26 more...
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Paul Fallavollita's List
The List of Paul Fallavollita.
cascade, concatenate, catalyst, eponymous, octet, recursive, illustrative, delineation, via, quandary, oppositional, necessary but not... and 2 more...
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Words
gravity, cheer, nigh, bliss, implore, intricate, pithy, airy, twee, dirigible, joy, hope and 13 more...
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Computers, Internet, and Technology
deprecate, polymorphism, immutable, blog, instantiate, superclass, subclass, interface, abstraction, script, compiler, internet and 18 more...
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bccall's Words
schadenfreude, feckless, trawl, dhyana, yoga, sannyasin, ameliorate, wazoo, equitable, grace, prana, pranayama and 50 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for instantiate.
qroqqa All the quotations in the OED second edition (1989) are from philosophy, going back to 1949. Apr 9, 2010
ctenophile I believe that this word was dredged up by a computer scientist perhaps in the 1980s. It does not occur in my 1980s Oxford English Dictionary. The whole business of programming jargon diffusing into popular culture needs to be investigated by some hypercaffeinated lexicographer... Apr 8, 2010