instruct

verb

1. 1

   To teach by giving instructions.

   Listen carefully when someone instructs you how to assemble the furniture.

   Supply me with the habit and instruct me How I may formally in person bear me Like a true friar.

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

2. 2

   To tell (someone) what they must or should do.

   Usage note: "instruct" is less forceful than "order", but weightier than "advise"

   The doctor instructed me to keep my arm immobilised and begin physiotherapy.

   What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

   All the servants were instructed to address her as “Mum,” or “Madam” […]

3. 3

   To give (one's own lawyer) legal instructions as to how they should act in relation to a particular issue; thereby formally appointing them as one's own legal representative in relation to it.

   If you're not careful, I'm going to instruct a solicitor over this.

noun

1. 1

   obsoleteInstruction.

adjective

1. 1

   obsoleteArranged; furnished; provided.

   For he had neither ship, instruct with oares, Nor men to fetch him from those stranger shores.

2. 2

   obsoleteInstructed; taught; enlightened.

   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?

Forms

plural

instructs

past tense

instructed

past participle

instructed

present participle

instructing

third person singular

instructs