instruct

present singular third person instructs · participle present instructing · participle past instructed · past instructed

1. transitiveTo teach by giving instructions.

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

   5 more examples

   Supply me with the habit and instruct me How I may formally in person bear me Like a true friar.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]

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

   1682, Aphra Behn, The False Count, London: Jacob Tonson, act III, scene 2, page 33

   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,

   […] 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.

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “chapter 10”, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

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

   1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, chapter 29, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN, part 4, page 353

   Synonyms: educate, guide

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

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

   4 more examples

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

   What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]

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

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 39, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

   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.”

   1989, John Irving, chapter 5, in A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: Ballantine, published 1997, page 195

   Synonyms: command, direct, order

3. transitiveTo give (one's own lawyer) legal instructions as to how they should act in relation to a particular issue; thereby formally appointing them as one's own legal representative in relation to it.

   If you're not careful, I'm going to instruct a solicitor over this.

plural instructs

1. obsoleteInstruction.

1. not comparableobsoleteArranged; furnished; provided.

   For he had neither ship, instruct with oares, Nor men to fetch him from those stranger shores.

   c. 1615, George Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 4, p. 62

2. not comparableobsoleteInstructed; taught; enlightened.

   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?

   1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained, London: John Starkey, Book 1, lines 438-441, p. 24