different between passage vs instance

English

Etymology 1

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French passage, from passer (“to pass”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pæs?d??/

Adjective

passage (not comparable)

1. Describing a bird that has left the nest, is living on its own, but is less than a year old. (commonly used in falconry)

   Passage red-tailed hawks are preferred by falconers because these younger birds have not yet developed the adult behaviors which would make them more difficult to train.

Noun

passage (plural passages)

1. A paragraph or section of text or music with particular meaning.

   passage of scripture

   She struggled to play the difficult passages.

2. Part of a path or journey.

   He made his passage through the trees carefully, mindful of the stickers.

3. An incident or episode.
   • 1961, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961: Hearings

     But there are those who do not feel that the sordid passages of life should be kept off the stage. It is a matter of opinion.

4. The official approval of a bill or act by a parliament. [from 17th c.]

   The company was one of the prime movers in lobbying for the passage of the act.

5. The advance of time.

   Synonym: passing
6. (art) The use of tight brushwork to link objects in separate spatial plains. Commonly seen in Cubist works.
7. A passageway or corridor.
8. (caving) An underground cavity, formed by water or falling rocks, which is much longer than it is wide.
9. (euphemistic) The vagina.
   • 1986, Bertrice Small, A Love for All Time,^[1] New American Library, ?ISBN, page 463:

     With a look of triumph that he was unable to keep from his dark eyes he slid into her passage with one smooth thrust, […]

   • 1987, Usha Sarup, Expert Lovemaking, Jaico Publishing House, ?ISBN, page 53:

     This way, the tip of your penis will travel up and down her passage.

   • 2009, Cat Lindler, Kiss of a Traitor, Medallion Press, ?ISBN, page 249:

     At the same moment, Aidan plunged two fingers deep into her passage and broke through her fragile barrier.

10. The act of passing; movement across or through.
    • 1886, Pacific medical journal Volume 29

      He claimed that he felt the passage of the knife through the ilio-cæcal valve, from the very considerable pain which it caused.

11. The right to pass from one place to another.
12. A fee paid for passing or for being conveyed between places.
13. Serial passage, a technique used in bacteriology and virology
14. (dice games, now historical) A gambling game for two players using three dice, in which the object is to throw a double over ten. [from 15th c.]

Derived terms

• passage maker, passagemaker
• Restronguet Passage
• rite of passage

Translations

Verb

passage (third-person singular simple present passages, present participle passaging, simple past and past participle passaged)

1. (medicine) To pass something, such as a pathogen or stem cell, through a host or medium

   He passaged the virus through a series of goats.

   After 24 hours, the culture was passaged to an agar plate.

2. (rare) To make a passage, especially by sea; to cross

   They passaged to America in 1902.

Etymology 2

From French passager, from Italian passeggiare

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?pas???/

Noun

passage (plural passages)

1. (dressage) A movement in classical dressage, in which the horse performs a very collected, energetic, and elevated trot that has a longer period of suspension between each foot fall than a working trot.

Translations

Verb

passage (third-person singular simple present passages, present participle passaging, simple past and past participle passaged)

1. (intransitive, dressage) To execute a passage movement

Further reading

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

Dutch

Etymology

From passeren +? -age

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: pas?sa?ge

Noun

passage f (plural passages, diminutive passagetje n)

1. A paragraph or section of text with particular meaning. ~ of scripture.
2. a passage way in a city.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?.sa?/, /pa.sa?/
• Homophones: passagent, passages
• Rhymes: -a?

Etymology 1

From Old French, from passer +? -age.

Noun

passage m (plural passages)

1. The act of going through a place or event.
2. The time when such an act occurs.
3. (uncountable) Circulation, traffic, movement.
4. (astronomy) Moment when a star or planet occults another,or crosses a meridian.
5. A short stay.
6. A trip or travel, especially by boat.
7. The act of going from a state to another.
8. Graduation from a school year.
9. The act of making something undergo a process.
10. the act of handing something to someone.
11. An access way.
12. A laid out way allowing to go across something.
13. An alley or alleyway off-limits to cars.
14. A paragraph or section of text or music.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Portuguese: passagem

Etymology 2

Verb form of passager.

Verb

passage

1. first-person singular present indicative of passager
2. third-person singular present indicative of passager
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of passager
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of passager
5. second-person singular imperative of passager

Further reading

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

Old French

Noun

passage m (oblique plural passages, nominative singular passages, nominative plural passage)

1. passage (part of a route or journey)

Descendants

• ? English: passage
• French: passage
  • ? Portuguese: passagem
• ? Swedish: passage

Swedish

Etymology

From Old French passage, from passer (“to pass”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa?s???/, /pa?s???/

Noun

passage c

1. access, transit

   Synonym: genomgång

Declension

References

• passage in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• passage in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

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).