different between instruct vs jabber

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?æb?(?)/
• Rhymes: -æb?(?)

Etymology 1

Imitative.

Verb

jabber (third-person singular simple present jabbers, present participle jabbering, simple past and past participle jabbered)

1. (intransitive) To talk rapidly, indistinctly, or unintelligibly; to utter gibberish or nonsense.
   • 1829, James Hogg, The Shepherd’s Calendar, New York: A.T. Goodrich, Volume I, Chapter 9, “Mary Burnet,” p. 184,^[1]

     Allanson made some sound in his throat, as if attempting to speak, but his tongue refused its office, and he only jabbered.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 19,^[2]

     “What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I.

2. (transitive) To utter rapidly or indistinctly; to gabble.
   • 1939, H. G. Wells, The Holy Terror, Book One, Chapter 1, Section 2,^[3]

     He wept very little, but when he wept he howled aloud, and jabbered wild abuse, threats and recriminations through the wet torrent of his howling.

Translations

Noun

jabber (uncountable)

1. Rapid or incoherent talk, with indistinct utterance; gibberish.
   • 1735, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, edited by George Faulkner, Dublin, 1735, Volume 3, A Letter from Capt. Gulliver to his Cousin Sympson, pp. v-vi,^[4]

     And, is there less Probability in my Account of the Houyhnhnms or Yahoos, when it is manifest as to the latter, there are so many Thousands even in this City, who only differ from their Brother Brutes in Houyhnhnmland, because they use a Sort of a Jabber, and do not go naked.

   • 1918, Carl Sandburg, “Jabberers” in Cornhuskers, New York: Henry Holt & Co., p. 68,^[5]

     Two tongues from the depths,

     Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike,

     Fling their staccato tantalizations

     Into a wildcat jabber

     Over a gossamer web of unanswerables.

Derived terms

• jabberment (obsolete)

Translations

Etymology 2

jab +? -er

Noun

jabber (plural jabbers)

1. One who or that which jabs.
2. A kind of hand-operated corn planter.
   • 1999, Nicholas P. Hardeman, Across the Bloody Chasm

     The jabber was the most popular hand-operated corn planter ever devised. […] Inset shows jaws closed for jabbing (left) and open for depositing kernels (right).