different between instance vs unit

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)

1. (obsolete) Urgency of manner or words; an urgent request; insistence. [14th-19th c.]
2. (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

3. (obsolete) That which is urgent; motive.
4. (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 […]

5. 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.

6. 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 […]

7. 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.

8. (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.

9. (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.

10. (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.

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)

1. (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 .

2. (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)

1. (often in the plural) urgent demand, insistence, plea
2. authority, forum, agency, body
3. (law) legal proceedings, prosecution process
4. (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)

1. (computing) instance

Anagrams

• cantines

Further reading

• “instance” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

Formerly unite, a later form of unity; see unity.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ju?.n?t/
• Rhymes: -u?n?t

Noun

unit (plural units)

1. (mathematics) Oneness, singularity, seen as a component of a whole number; a magnitude of one. [from 16th c.]
   • 1570, John Dee, in H. Billingsley (trans.) Euclid, Elements of Geometry, Preface:

     Number, we define, to be, a certayne Mathematicall S?me, of Vnits. [Note the worde, Vnit, to expresse the Greke Monas, & not Vnitie: as we haue all, commonly, till now, vsed.]

2. (sciences) A standard measure of a quantity.

3. The number one.
4. Clipping of international unit.

5. An organized group comprising people and/or equipment.

6. (military, informal) A member of a military organization.

7. (US, military) Any military element whose structure is prescribed by competent authority, such as a table of organization and equipment; specifically, part of an organization.
8. (US, military) An organization title of a subdivision of a group in a task force.
9. (US, military) A standard or basic quantity into which an item of supply is divided, issued, or detailed. In this meaning, also called unit of issue.
10. (US, military) With regard to Reserve Components of the Armed Forces, denotes a Selected Reserve unit organized, equipped, and trained for mobilization to serve on active duty as a unit or to augment or be augmented by another unit. Headquarters and support functions without wartime missions are not considered units.
11. (algebra) The identity element, neutral element.
12. (algebra) An element having an inverse, an invertible element; an associate of the unity.

    Hypernym: regular element

13. (category theory) In an adjunction, a natural transformation from the identity functor of the domain of the left adjoint functor to the composition of the right adjoint functor with the left adjoint functor.
14. (geology) A volume of rock or ice of identifiable origin and age range that is defined by the distinctive and dominant, easily mapped and recognizable petrographic, lithologic or paleontologic features (facies) that characterize it.
15. (commerce) An item which may be sold singly.

16. (Britain) A unit of alcohol.
17. (Britain, electricity) One kilowatt-hour (as recorded on an electricity meter).
18. (US, Australia, New Zealand) a measure of housing equivalent to the living quarters of one household; an apartment where a group of apartments is contained in one or more multi-storied buildings or a group of dwellings is in one or more single storey buildings, usually arranged around a driveway.
19. (historical) A gold coin of the reign of James I, worth twenty shillings.
20. A work unit.
21. (Britain, Australia, slang) A physically large person.
    • 2018, 11 December, BBC News, Aylesbury goalkeeper, 14, dies after match injury

      Luca's father, Americo Campanaro, said: "I feel like my heart has been ripped out."
      Mr Campanaro added: "He was a big lad, a big unit, that's why he was a goalkeeper, with a big heart to match. A gentle giant."

Synonyms

• (identity element): identity element, unity, unit element

Hyponyms

• (chip): arithmetic logic unit

Translations

Adjective

unit (not comparable)

1. For each unit.

   We have to keep our unit costs down if we want to make a profit.

2. (mathematics) Having a size or magnitude of one.
   • 1990, William W. S. Wei, Time Series Analysis, ?ISBN, page 9:

     Consider the following time sequence

     ${\displaystyle Z_{t}=A\sin(\omega t+\theta )}$,

     where ${\displaystyle A}$ is a random variable with a zero mean and a unit variance and ${\displaystyle \theta }$ is a random variable with a uniform distribution on the interval ${\displaystyle [-\pi ,\pi ]}$ independent of ${\displaystyle A}$.

Translations

Derived terms

References

Further reading

• unit in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• unit in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• unit at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• uint

Catalan

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /u?nit/
• Rhymes: -it

Adjective

unit (feminine unida, masculine plural units, feminine plural unides)

1. united

Derived terms

• Emirats Àrabs Units
• Estats Units
• Estats Units d'Amèrica
• Regne Unit

Verb

unit m (feminine unida, masculine plural units, feminine plural unides)

1. past participle of unir

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /y.ni/

Verb

unit

1. third-person singular present indicative of unir
2. third-person singular past historic of unir

Anagrams

• nuit

Indonesian

Etymology

From English unit.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [??n?t?]
• Hyphenation: unit

Noun

unit (first-person possessive unitku, second-person possessive unitmu, third-person possessive unitnya)

1. unit:
   1. (mathematics) oneness, singularity, seen as a component of a whole number; a magnitude of one.

      Synonym: satuan

   2. (sciences) a standard measure of a quantity.

Classifier

unit

1. Classifier for singularity.

Derived terms

Further reading

• “unit” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) Daring, Jakarta: Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2016.

Latin

Verb

?nit

1. third-person singular present active indicative of ?ni?

Occitan

Pronunciation

Verb

unit

1. past participle of unir

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [u?nit]

Participle

unit

1. past participle of uni

Declension

Welsh

Alternative forms

• unet (colloquial)
• unset (colloquial)

Pronunciation

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /???n?t/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /?i?n?t/, /??n?t/

Verb

unit

1. (literary) second-person singular imperfect/conditional of uno

Mutation