Instrumentation

How to spell instrumentation

15 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce instrumentation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does instrumentation mean?

1. nounThe collection of measuring and control devices fitted to a machine, vehicle, or system.
2. nounThe selection and arrangement of musical instruments used in a composition.

Instrumentation in a sentence

• The cockpit instrumentation failed during the test flight.

• The instrumentation of the symphony favours strings over brass.

• The laboratory upgraded its instrumentation to log readings automatically.

• Critics praised the rich instrumentation of the new album.

Where does instrumentation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin instrumentum, meaning a tool, an implement, or a piece of equipment, which itself grew from the verb instruere, 'to build up, arrange, or equip'. That verb combined the prefix in- ('upon, into') with struere ('to pile up or construct'), the same root that gives English 'structure' and 'construct'. Instrument entered English through Old French in the 1300s, first for a tool and soon for a device that makes music. The longer form instrumentation arose much later, around the early 1800s, originally as a musical term for the art of arranging a composition for particular instruments. From there it broadened in the industrial age to mean the array of measuring and control devices fitted to a machine, vehicle, or laboratory. The spelling stays predictable once you remember it is simply 'instrument' plus '-ation', so the tricky part is keeping the unstressed middle vowels in order.

How the word is built

• instrument (from Latin instrumentum: tool, equipment)
• -ation (noun suffix of action or result)