instar

Etymology 1

From Latin instar (“form, likeness”), which is of obscure origin.

noun

1. Any one of the several stages of postembryonic development which an arthropod undergoes, between molts, before it reaches sexual maturity.
2. An arthropod at a specified one of these stages of development.
   In A. orientalis, first and second instars were more susceptible than third instars to H. bacteriophora TF strain, […] 2005, Nematodes as biocontrol agents, edited by Parwinder S. Grewal, Ralf-Udo Ehlers, and David I. Shapiro-Ilan, (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 133
3. (by extension) A stage in development.
   California spirituality is a late instar of America’s utopian impulse, and corporate meritocracy derives from the Whig dream of the self-made man that entranced young Abraham Lincoln. 2014-01-08, Caleb Crain, “The Democratic Personality”, in The New Yorker

Etymology 2

From in- + star.

verb

1. (transitive, archaic) To stud or adorn with stars or other brilliants; to star.
   Yet mark with shining steps the humbler way; And, as angelic feet instar the sky, Drop the bright sparks along the wilderness. 1882, Frederick Randolph Abbe, The Temple Rebuilt: A Poem, page 125
   Espey could distinguish through the clear darkness the fringed branches of a pine-tree clinging to the heights above and waving against the instarred sky, and below a vague moving whiteness […] 1893, The Atlantic Monthly, volume 72, page 507
   He was dreaming, surely; or were those deep, instarred eyes really fixed upon him with that wistful gaze which he had seen only twice before? 1896, Mary Noailles Murfree (pseudonym Charles Egbert Craddock), In the Tennessee mountains, 14th edition, page 209
2. (transitive) To make a star of; set as a star.