different between instruct vs deny

English

Etymology

From Latin ?nstr?ctus, perfect passive participle of ?nstru? (“I instruct; I arrange, furnish, or provide”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n?st??kt/
• Rhymes: -?kt

Verb

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

   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 3,^[1]

     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,^[2]

     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,^[3]

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

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 10,^[4]

     […] 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,^[5]

     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"

   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act III, Scene 1,^[6]

     What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 39,^[7]

     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,^[8]

     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.”

Related terms

Translations

Noun

instruct (plural instructs)

1. (obsolete) Instruction.

Adjective

instruct (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Arranged; furnished; provided.
   • c. 1615, George Chapman (translator), Homer’s Odysses, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 4, p. 62,^[9]

     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,^[10]

     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?

Anagrams

• unstrict

English

Etymology

From Middle English denyen, from Old French denoier (“to deny, to repudiate”) (French dénier), from Latin denegare (“to deny, to refuse”), from de- (“away”) and negare (“to refuse”), the latter ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ne (“no, not”). Doublet of denegate.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d??na?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /d??na?/, /d?-/
• Rhymes: -a?
• Hyphenation: de?ny

Verb

deny (third-person singular simple present denies, present participle denying, simple past and past participle denied)

1. (transitive) To disallow or reject.
2. (transitive) To assert that something is not true.
3. (ditransitive) To refuse to give or grant something to someone.
   • 1754, Jonathan Edwards, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions Respecting that Freedom of the Will which is supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency

     To some men, it is more agreeable to deny a vicious inclination, than to gratify it.
4. To take something away from someone; to deprive of.
5. (sports, transitive) To prevent from scoring.
6. To disclaim connection with, responsibility for, etc.; to refuse to acknowledge; to disown; to abjure; to disavow.
   • 1834-1874, George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.

     the falsehood of denying his opinion

   • 1827, John Keble, The Christian Year

     thou thrice denied, yet thrice beloved

7. (obsolete) To refuse (to do or accept something).

Usage notes

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs.
• Deny can have a connotation that the denial is false; he denied knowing the accused has a more suspicious tone than he said he did not know the accused. However, in some formal usages, e.g. medical records, it can have a more neutral sense (patient denies chest pain).
• See refute.

Conjugation

Synonyms

• (assert something is not true): gainsay, contradict, withsay, refute, disclaim

Antonyms

• (disallow): allow
• (assert something is true): confirm, affirm

Derived terms

• deniability
• denier
• justice delayed is justice denied

Related terms

• denial

Translations

Anagrams

• E.D.N.Y., Ynde, dyne