instruct

Etymology

From Latin īnstrūctus, perfect passive participle of īnstruō (“I instruct; I arrange, furnish, or provide”).

verb

1. (transitive) To teach by giving instructions.
   Listen carefully when someone instructs you how to assemble the furniture.
   What a dishonour’s this, to me, to have so Dull a Father, that needs to be instructed in his Duty. 1682, Aphra Behn, The False Count, London: Jacob Tonson, act III, scene 2, page 33
   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. (transitive) 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.
   Observing that the Christ Child’s nose was running, she deftly wiped it; then she held the handkerchief in place, while instructing him to “blow.” 1989, John Irving, chapter 5, in A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: Ballantine, published 1997, page 195

noun

1. (obsolete) Instruction.

adj

1. (obsolete) Arranged; furnished; provided.
   For he had neither ship, instruct with oares, Nor men to fetch him from those stranger shores. c. 1615, George Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 4, p. 62
2. (obsolete) Instructed; 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? 1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained, London: John Starkey, Book 1, lines 438-441, p. 24