instruction

(ĭn-strŭk'shən)
n.

1. The act, practice, or profession of instructing.
2. 1. Imparted knowledge.
   2. An imparted or acquired item of knowledge; a lesson.
3. Computer Science. A sequence of bits that tells a central processing unit to perform a particular operation and can contain data to be used in the operation.
4. 1. An authoritative direction to be obeyed; an order. Often used in the plural: had instructions to be home by midnight.
   2. instructions Detailed directions on procedure: read the instructions for assembly.

instructional in·struc'tion·al adj.

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(1) A statement in a programming language. See source code.

(2) A machine instruction. See machine language.

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noun

1. The act, process, or art of imparting knowledge and skill: education, pedagogics, pedagogy, schooling, teaching, training, tuition, tutelage, tutoring. See teach/learn.
2. Known facts, ideas, and skill that have been imparted: education, erudition, knowledge, learning, scholarship, science. See knowledge/ignorance.
3. An authoritative indication to be obeyed. behest, bidding, charge, command, commandment, dictate, direction, directive, injunction, mandate, order, word. See over/under, words.

n

Definition: demand, command
Antonyms: question

n. 1. (often instructions) a direction or order: he issued instructions to the sheriff |he was acting on my instructions.

2. teaching; education: the school offers personalized instruction in a variety of skills.

instructional adj.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Instructions, issued to every royal governor on his departure for the colonies, delineated the specific powers established in the governor's commission. They were most often prepared in the king's name by special committees of the Privy Council or, subsequent to its organization in 1696, the Board of Trade, in consultation with English merchants, other royal officials, and colonial agents. Royal governors received instructions on every facet of colonial administration, including colonial councils and assemblies, finances, the courts, military matters, trade, navigation, commerce, and religious establishment.

A newly appointed governor sometimes had the opportunity to make suggestions about his own instructions. The Board of Trade also consulted royal commissioners, including those of the Admiralty, the Treasury, and the Customs. English merchants wielded considerable influence in the drafting of instructions. Merchants who objected to colonial legislation had only to petition the Board of Trade, which, in keeping with mercantilist interests, disallowed laws "prejudicial to the trading interests of Great Britain." Colonists objected to those trade-based instructions that seemed frequently to represent British interests at the expense of the colonists. Such instructions, however, were issued to nearly all of the royal governors until the American Revolution.

Bibliography

Labaree, Leonard Woods. Royal Government in America. 2d ed. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1964.

———, ed. Royal Instructions to British Colonial Governors, 1670–1776. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1935.Reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1967.

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

Directives given by a judge to a jury during a trial prescribing the manner in which the jurors should proceed in deciding the case at bar.

Jury instructions ordinarily include a statement of the questions of fact for determination by the jury, as well as a statement of the laws applicable to the facts of the case.

IN BRIEF: n. - The activities of educating; The profession of a teacher; (computer science) a line of code written as part of a computer program; A message describing how something is to be done.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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n

A set of characters, together with one or more addresses, that defines a computer operation and, as a unit, causes the computer to operate accordingly on the indicated quantities; a term associated with software operation.

For a list of words related to instruction, see:

• General Technology - instruction: command; single operation to be executed
• Curricula, Studies, Learning, and Tests - instruction: teaching, lectures

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See words rhyming with "instructional."

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - instruktion, undervisning, vejledning, instruks, direktiv, ordre (edb)

Nederlands (Dutch)
instructie, aanwijzing, onderwijs, order, (mv) gebruiksaanwijzing

Français (French)
n. - instruction, (Comput) instruction

Deutsch (German)
n. - Anweisung, Instruktion, Befehl, Unterricht

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - διδασκαλία, διδαχή, εκπαίδευση, οδηγία, εντολή, καθοδήγηση, (Η/Υ) μεμονωμένη εντολή

Italiano (Italian)
istruzione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - instrução (f)

Русский (Russian)
обучение, инструктирование, образование

Español (Spanish)
n. - orden, mandato, enseñanza, instrucción

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - undervisning, instruktion (äv. data)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
指示, 教育, 用法说明

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 指示, 教育, 用法說明

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 교육, 교훈, 명령

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 教授, 教育, 訓令, 命令, 知識

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تعليم, أمر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮הדרכה, הוראה‬

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