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instrumental

adj
/ɪnstɹəˈmɛntəl/

Etymology

From Middle English instrumental, instrumentale, from Medieval Latin īnstrūmentālis, equivalent to instrument + -al.

  1. derived from īnstrūmentālis
  2. inherited from instrumental

Definitions

  1. Essential or central

    Essential or central; of great importance or relevance.

    • He was instrumental in conducting the business.
    • The head is not more native to the heart, The hand more instrumental to the mouth
    • Few songwriters have been as instrumental in creating the mold for American music.

  2. Serving as an instrument, medium, means, or agency.

    • Maxwell started back to his study, feeling that kind of satisfaction which a man feels when he has been even partly instrumental in finding an unemployed person a remunerative position.

  3. Pertaining to, made by, or prepared for an instrument, especially a musical instrument…

    Pertaining to, made by, or prepared for an instrument, especially a musical instrument (rather than the human voice).

    • instrumental music
    • an instrumental part
    • Sweet voices mix'd with instrumental sounds.
  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. Applied to a case expressing means or agency, generally corresponding to the English use…

      Applied to a case expressing means or agency, generally corresponding to the English use of prepositions such as by, with, through, or by means of with the objective case.

      • the instrumental case

    2. The instrumental case.

    3. A composition written or performed without lyrics or singing, using a lead instrument to…

      A composition written or performed without lyrics or singing, using a lead instrument to replace vocals.

      • I recommend this album in the face of the fact that five of the eleven songs are the purest filler, dull instrumentals with a harmonica rifling over an indifferent rhythm section. The rest is magnificent […]

    4. A pause in the vocals of a song, usually occurring midway through, in which a musical…

      A pause in the vocals of a song, usually occurring midway through, in which a musical instrument replaces the vocals.

The neighborhood

Derived

instrumental error, instrumentalisation, instrumentalism, instrumentalist, instrumentality, instrumentalize, instrumentally, instrumentalness, instrumental rationality, instrumental version, instrumental width, instrumentive, uninstrumental

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for instrumental. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA