different between instance vs thing
instance
English
Alternative forms
- enstance, enstaunce, instaunce (all obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle French instance, from Latin instantia (“a being near, presence, also perseverance, earnestness, importunity, urgency”), from instans (“urgent”); see instant.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /??nst?ns/
Noun
instance (plural instances)
- (obsolete) Urgency of manner or words; an urgent request; insistence. [14th-19th c.]
- (obsolete) A token; a sign; a symptom or indication.
- It sends some precious instance of itself/ After the thing it loves. Hamlet IV. v. ca. 1602
- (obsolete) That which is urgent; motive.
- (obsolete) A piece of evidence; a proof or sign (of something). [16th-18th c.]
- c. 1594, William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors:
- The reason that I gather he is mad, Besides this present instance of his rage, Is a mad tale he told to day at dinner […]
- c. 1594, William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors:
- Occasion; order of occurrence.
- 1713, Matthew Hale, The History of the Common Law of England
- These seem as if, in the time of Edward I., they were drawn up into the form of a law, in the first instance.
- 1713, Matthew Hale, The History of the Common Law of England
- A case offered as an exemplification or a precedent; an illustrative example. [from 16th c.]
- August 30, 1706, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, at the funeral of Mr. Tho. Bennet
- most remarkable instances of suffering
- :
- sometimes we love those that are absent, saith Philostratus, and gives instance in his friend Athenodorus, that loved a maid at Corinth whom he never saw […]
- August 30, 1706, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, at the funeral of Mr. Tho. Bennet
- One of a series of recurring occasions, cases, essentially the same.
- 2010, The Guardian, 11 Oct 2010:
- The organisations claim fraudsters are targeting properties belonging to both individuals and companies, in some instances using forged documents.
- 2010, The Guardian, 11 Oct 2010:
- (computing) A specific occurrence of something that is created or instantiated, such as a database, or an object of a class in object-oriented programming. [from 20th c.]
- 2000, Dov Bulka, David Mayhew, Efficient C++: Performance Programming Techniques (page 149)
- Some compilers will allow statics to be inlined, but then incorrectly create multiple instances of the inlined variable at run-time.
- 2000, Dov Bulka, David Mayhew, Efficient C++: Performance Programming Techniques (page 149)
- (massively multiplayer online games) A dungeon or other area that is duplicated for each player, or each party of players, that enters it, so that each player or party has a private copy of the area, isolated from other players.
- 2006 September 1, "Dan" (username), "Re: DPS Classes: Why should I heal you?", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:
- As long as the most difficult instance you've tried is Gnomeregan, you're never going to be credible talking about 'difficult encounters'.
- 2010, William Sims Bainbridge, Online Multiplayer Games, Morgan & Claypool, ?ISBN, page 26:
- For example, when a team of five players enters the Sunken Temple instance in World of Warcraft, they will battle many monsters, but they will not encounter other players even though several teams of players may be experiencing the Sunken Temple at the same time.
- 2012, anonymous gamer quoted in Andrew Ee & Hichang Cho, "What Makes an MMORPG Leader? A Social Cognitive Theory-Based Approach to Understanding the Formation of Leadership Capabilities in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games", Eludamos, volume 6, page 31:
- Beating a difficult instance becomes second nature after running through it…a few times, with good leaders knowing exactly what to do and how to co-ordinate member actions.
- 2006 September 1, "Dan" (username), "Re: DPS Classes: Why should I heal you?", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:
- (massively multiplayer online games) An individual copy of such a dungeon or other area.
- 2005 January 11, Patrick B., "Re: Instance dungeons", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:
- The instance is created for the group that enters it.
- 2005 December 6, "Rene" (username), "Re: Does group leader affect drops?", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:
- As soon as the first player enters (spawns) a new instance, it appears that the loottable is somehow chosen.
- 2010, Anthony Steed & Manuel Fradinho Oliveira, Networked Graphics: Building Networked Games and Virtual Environments, Elsevier, ?ISBN, page 398:
- A castle on the eastern edge of the island spawns a new instance whenever a party of players enters.
- 2005 January 11, Patrick B., "Re: Instance dungeons", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
See also
- (computing) closure, class, object
Verb
instance (third-person singular simple present instances, present participle instancing, simple past and past participle instanced)
- (transitive) To mention as a case or example; to refer to; to cite
- 1946, E. M. Butler, Rainer Maria Rilke, p. 404
- The poems which I have instanced are concrete and relatively glaring examples of the intangible difference which the change of language made in Rilke's visions .
- 1946, E. M. Butler, Rainer Maria Rilke, p. 404
- (intransitive) To cite an example as proof; to exemplify.
References
- instance in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- instance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
Anagrams
- ancients, canniest, cantines, catenins, enactins, insectan, tenascin
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /??s.t??s/
- Rhymes: -??s
Etymology 1
From Latin instantia
Noun
instance f (plural instances)
- (often in the plural) urgent demand, insistence, plea
- authority, forum, agency, body
- (law) legal proceedings, prosecution process
- (object-oriented programming) instance
Derived terms
- en instance
- tribunal d'instance
- première instance
Etymology 2
A derivative of etymology 1, but reborrowed from English.
Noun
instance f (plural instances)
- (computing) instance
Anagrams
- cantines
Further reading
- “instance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
instance From the web:
- what instances of foreshadowing occur in this chapter
- what instance means
- what instances are distance and displacement equal
- what instance of salesforce am i on
- what instances of human compassion and dignity
- what instance variable in java
- what instance of alliteration is used here
- what are some examples of foreshadowing in the book night
thing
English
Alternative forms
- thang (slang, pronunciation spelling, usually used to denote a known fad or popular activity)
- thin' (informal, pronunciation spelling)
- thinge (archaic)
- thynge (obsolete)
- ting (Caribbean creoles, MLE)
Etymology
From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-Germanic *þing?; compare West Frisian ding, Low German Ding, Dutch ding, German Ding, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian ting. The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin r?s, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.
Pronunciation
- enPR: th?ng, IPA(key): /???/
- Rhymes: -??
Noun
thing (plural things)
- That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
- 1611 — King James Version of the Bible, Luke 1:1
- Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
- 1611 — King James Version of the Bible, Luke 1:1
- A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
- An individual object or distinct entity.
- (informal) A genuine concept, entity or phenomenon; something that actually exists (often contrary to expectation or belief). [from 20th c.]
- 2014, Marianna Papastephanou, Torill Strand, Anne Pirrie, Philosophy as a Lived Experience
- Frequent statements of the kind “'Race' is not a thing”, “'races,' put simply, do not exist”, “'race' (as each essay subtly shows) simply does not exist” aim to discredit Todorov's claim that a relapse to an ontology of race is at place […]
- 2019, Adam Gopnik, A Thousand Small Sanities, Riverrun 2019, p. 88:
- Conservative philosophy, in other words, is, as we say now, a thing and deserves a serious listen.
- 2014, Marianna Papastephanou, Torill Strand, Anne Pirrie, Philosophy as a Lived Experience
- (law)
- Whatever can be owned.
- Corporeal object.
- (somewhat dated, with the) The latest fad or fashion.
- 1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45:
- To go to bed late, to rise late, to breakfast late, to dine late, and to visit late, is to be “quite the thing,” or in good English, which you may understand better than the first phrase, to be in the fashion.
- 2002, Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929, Univ of California Press (?ISBN)
- After a slow start it became the thing to do; 'everyone went to see Pbi-Pbi, no one talked of anything but Pbi-Pbi […] '
- 1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45:
- (in the plural) Clothes, possessions or equipment.
- (informal) A unit or container, usually containing edible goods.
- 2011, Juliette Fay, Deep Down True: A Novel, Penguin (?ISBN)
- I came home and ate a whole thing of ice cream.
- 2011, Juliette Fay, Deep Down True: A Novel, Penguin (?ISBN)
- (informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.
- (slang) A penis.
- 1959, William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:
- “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”
- 1959, William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:
- A living being or creature.
- That which matters; the crux.
- Used after a noun to refer dismissively to the situation surrounding the noun's referent.
- 1914, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man [playscript]:
- Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing. (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)
- 1914, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man [playscript]:
- (informal) That which is favoured; personal preference. (Used in possessive constructions.)
- (chiefly historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
- 1974, Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:
- In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]
- 1974, Jakob Benediktsson, Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis, in Saga Íslands, quoted in 1988 by Jesse L. Byock in Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 85:
- The goðar seem both to have received payment of thing-fararkaup from those who stayed home and at the same time compensated those who went to the thing, and it cannot be seen whether they had any profit from these transactions.
- 1988, Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 59:
- All Icelandic things were skap-thing, meaning that they were governed by established procedure and met at regular legally designated intevals at predetermined meeting places.
- 1974, Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:
- (informal) A romantic relationship.
Synonyms
- (referent that can be used to refer to any entity): item, stuff (uncountable equivalent), yoke (Ireland)
- (penis): see Thesaurus:penis
- (personal preference): see Thesaurus:predilection
Derived terms
Related terms
- diminutives: thingy / thingie, thingo [Aus]
Translations
Further reading
- thing in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- thing in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
Verb
thing (third-person singular simple present things, present participle thinging, simple past and past participle thinged)
- (rare) To express as a thing; to reify.
Anagrams
- Night, night
Khumi Chin
Etymology
From Proto-Kuki-Chin *thi?, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *si?. Cognates include Mizo thing and Zou sing.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /t???/
Noun
thing
- firewood
References
- K. E. Herr (2011) The phonological interpretation of minor syllables, applied to Lemi Chin?[1], Payap University, page 44
Middle English
Alternative forms
- thinge, ðhing
Etymology
From Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing.
Noun
thing (plural thinges)
- thing
Descendants
- English: thing
- Scots: thing, ting, hing
- Yola: dhing
References
- “thing, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Mizo
Etymology
From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *si?. Akin to Khumi Chin thing.
Noun
thing
- tree
- wood
- firewood
References
- Matisoff, James A., Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman, University of California Press.
Old Dutch
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *þing?.
Noun
thing n
- thing, object
- case, matter, issue
Inflection
Descendants
- Middle Dutch: dinc
- Dutch: ding
- Afrikaans: ding
- Limburgish: dink, ding
- Dutch: ding
Further reading
- “think”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012
Old High German
Alternative forms
- ding, dink
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *þing?
Noun
thing n
- thing, object
- matter, case
Declension
Descendants
- Middle High German: ding
- Cimbrian: ding
- German: Ding
- Luxembourgish: Déngen
- Pennsylvania German: Ding
Old Saxon
Etymology
From Proto-West Germanic *þing. Compare Old Dutch thing, Old Frisian thing, Old English þing, Old High German ding, Old Norse þing.
Noun
thing n
- thing, object
- matter, case
Declension
Descendants
- Middle Low German: dink
- German Low German: Ding
- Plautdietsch: Dinkj
thing From the web:
- what things are blue
- what things are purple
- what things happened in 2020
- what things are red
- what things are orange
- what things have gluten
- what things can be recycled
- what things are magnetic
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