[ UK /ˈɪnstənt/ ]
[ US /ˈɪnstənt/ ]
ADJECTIVE
  1. demanding attention
    regarded literary questions as exigent and momentous
    clamant needs
    insistent hunger
    a crying need
    an instant need
  2. occurring with no delay
    instant gratification
    relief was instantaneous
  3. in or of the present month
    your letter of the 10th inst
NOUN
  1. a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or the heart to beat)
    if I had the chance I'd do it in a flash
  2. a particular point in time
    the moment he arrived the party began
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How To Use instant In A Sentence

  • I play the piano, so it is natural for me to think ‘harmonically’ a lot of the time (one can hear harmonies instantly on a piano; also mainstream jazz is extremely harmony driven).
  • My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial travelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road — “a dry road, Emma my dear,” my poor Lirriper says to me, “where I have to lay the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and it wears me Emma” — and this led to his running through a good deal and might have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being night and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
  • The landowner instantly conceives a dislike of the dog and demands that she be gotten rid of.
  • I instantly grew a floppy fringe, bought a combat jacket and started shuffling.
  • Credit, however, must go where it's due and there's one name that springs instantly to mind when considering the rise and rise of the re-invented jandal. Stuff.co.nz - Stuff
  • The exigencies of journalism demand instant appraisals and on-the-spot verdicts.
  • The American liked him instantly, signed him to his promotional company and used him as a sparring partner. Times, Sunday Times
  • She blasted him in the face with a shot of plasma, more than likely killing the pilot instantly.
  • Likewise, if you told an ethologist that you found a new species of primate that is closely related to chimps, she would instantly know a tremendous amount about this animal and what it might be able to do. Bunny and a Book
  • His death was quite instantaneous. Times, Sunday Times
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