Instruct

How to spell instruct

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce instruct

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does instruct mean?

1. verbTo teach someone a subject or skill by giving systematic information.
2. verbTo give someone an authoritative order or direction to do something.

Instruct in a sentence

• The senior nurse will instruct new staff on the safety procedures.

• The judge will instruct the jury to disregard that remark.

• A retired pilot was hired to instruct the flying club members.

• Head office can instruct the branch to close early on holidays.

Where does instruct come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb instruere, which combined the prefix in- meaning 'in' or 'into' with struere meaning 'to build, arrange, or pile up'. Quite literally it meant to build something into place, and from there it shifted to the sense of furnishing or equipping someone, and finally to furnishing the mind with knowledge. English took the word up in the late 1300s, originally from the past participle instructus, and it carried both the idea of teaching and the idea of directing or commanding. The same struere root sits inside a family of familiar words such as 'structure', 'construct', and 'destroy', all of which turn on building or pulling apart. Knowing that struct relates to building helps fix the central -struct- spelling, with the single s tucked between the n and the t.

How the word is built

• in- (in, into, towards)
• struct (from Latin struere: to build, arrange, pile up)