Definitions
American HeritageĀ® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The state or quality of being instrumental.
- n. A means; an agency.
- n. A subsidiary branch, as of a government, by means of which functions or policies are carried out.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state or character of being instrumental; subordinate or auxiliary agency; agency of anything as means to an end.
- n. An instrumental means or agency; something serving as an instrument; as, preaching is the great instrumentality in the spread of religion.
Wiktionary
- n. The quality or condition of being instrumental; serving a purpose, being useful.
- n. A governmental organ with a specific purpose.
- n. Something that is instrumental
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or condition of being instrumental; that which is instrumental; anything used as a means; medium; agency.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a subsidiary organ of government created for a special purpose
- n. an artifact (or system of artifacts) that is instrumental in accomplishing some end
- n. the quality of being instrumental for some purpose
Examples
“So in the quickening of the dead to spiritual life, human instrumentality is employed first to prepare the way, and then to turn it to account.”
“Yes, the notion of instrumentality is handled differently in Slavic languages.”
“He was able to communicate with Jehovah himself, and the simple instrument that he used was one that is always in vogue with the human race, that is, the instrumentality of prayer.”
“Mr. Samantar, who now lives in Fairfax, Va., contends that because he was prime minister or defense minister from 1980 until the Somali regime's 1991 collapse, he was an "instrumentality" of government and thus immune from liability.”
The Wall Street Journal: High Court Addresses Foreigners' Immunity
“Unconstrained by, indeed necessarily opposed to, any normative set of ends or social frameworks, classical liberalism's model of individual, competitive agency understands its flourishing to be premised on the absence of external constraints and obligations and on its positively merging utilitarianism's notions of "instrumentality" and "efficiency.”
The Melancholic Gift: Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy and Fiction
“The so-called norms of the market, such as instrumentality and fungibility, come in varying degrees and characterize not only market, but also nonmarket, relationships, including friendship.”
“This meant a motor vehicle constituted an "instrumentality" of the offences of driving under the influence of liquor and could thus be forfeited to the state in terms of the Act. However, the Bloemfontein court also held a vehicle driven in these conditions was not liable to forfeiture in every case.”
“The word "instrumentality" does not appear in this context in the Belgian report.”
“That was the setting-in of a new current for his ambition, directing his prospects of "instrumentality" towards the uniting of distinguished religious gifts with successful business.”
“The secret processes on which the successful result depends are altogether beyond my reach, and in the hands of God, and he can just as easily bless one kind of instrumentality as another.”
Lists
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vanishedone The Instrumentality of Mankind appears in Cordwainer Smith's stories.
'It is the pride of the Instrumentality that the Instrumentality allows its officers to commit crimes or mistakes or suicide. The Instrumentality does the things for mankind that a computer can not do. The Instrumentality leaves the human brain, the human choice in action.' Dec 4, 2007