instruct

From Latin īnstrūctus, perfect passive participle of īnstruō (“I instruct; I arrange, furnish, or provide”).

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪnˈstɹʌkt/

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instruct (third-person singular simple present instructs, present participle instructing, simple past and past participle instructed)

1. (transitive) To teach by giving instructions.

   Synonyms: educate, guide

   Listen carefully when someone instructs you how to assemble the furniture.

   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 3,

     Supply me with the habit and instruct me

     How I may formally in person bear me

     Like a true friar.

   • 1682, Aphra Behn, The False Count, London: Jacob Tonson, Act III, Scene 2, p. 33,

     What a dishonour’s this, to me, to have so Dull a Father, that needs to be instructed in his Duty.

   • 1751, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 156, 14 September, 1751, in Volume 5, London: J. Payne and J. Bouquet, 1752, p. 177,

     […] the design of tragedy is to instruct by moving the passions,

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 10,

     […] I should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you.

   • 1974, Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, New York: William Morrow, Part 4, Chapter 29, p. 353,

     At the Laundromat I instruct Chris on how to operate the drier, start the washing machines […]

2. (transitive) To tell (someone) what they must or should do.

   Synonyms: command, direct, order

   Usage note: "instruct" is less forceful than "order", but weightier than "advise"

   The doctor instructed me to keep my arm immobilised and begin physiotherapy.

   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act III, Scene 1,

     What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 39,

     All the servants were instructed to address her as “Mum,” or “Madam” […]

   • 1989, John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: Ballantine, 1997, Chapter 5, p. 195,

     Observing that the Christ Child’s nose was running, she deftly wiped it; then she held the handkerchief in place, while instructing him to “blow.”

instruct (plural instructs)

1. (obsolete) Instruction.

instruct (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Arranged; furnished; provided.
   • c. 1615, George Chapman (translator), Homer’s Odysses, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 4, p. 62,

     For he had neither ship, instruct with oares,

     Nor men to fetch him from those stranger shores.

2. (obsolete) Instructed; taught; enlightened.
   • 1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained, London: John Starkey, Book 1, lines 438-441, p. 24,

     Who ever by consulting at thy shrine

     Return’d the wiser, or the more instruct

     To flye or follow what concern’d him most,

     And run not sooner to his fatal snare?

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