Noun

(en noun)

An incident or action standing out by itself, but more or less connected with a complete series of events.

:

* {{quote-book, year=1935, author=

, chapter=10/6, title= The Norwich Victims , passage=The Attorney-General, however, had used this episode , which Martin in retrospect had felt to be a blot on the scutcheon, merely to emphasise the intelligence and resource of the prisoner.}}

An installment of a drama told in parts, as in a TV series.

:

*{{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 20, author=Nathan Rabin

, title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club , passage=We all know how genius “Kamp Krusty,” “A Streetcar Named Marge,” “Homer The Heretic,” “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie” and “Mr. Plow” are, but even the relatively unheralded episodes offer wall-to-wall laughs and some of the smartest, darkest, and weirdest gags ever Trojan-horsed into a network cartoon with a massive family audience.}}

Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) Urgency of manner or words; an urgent request; insistence.

*, II.8:

I know one very well alied, to whom, at the instance of a brother of his.

* Sir Walter Scott

undertook at her instance to restore them.

(obsolete) A token; a sign; a symptom or indication.

It sends some precious instance of itself/ After the thing it loves. Hamlet IV. v. ca. 1602

(obsolete) That which is urgent; motive.

* Shakespeare

The instances that second marriage move / Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

Occasion; order of occurrence.

* Sir M. Hale

These seem as if, in the time of Edward I., they were drawn up into the form of a law, in the first instance .

A case offered as an exemplification or a precedent; an illustrative example.

* Atterbury

most remarkable instances of suffering

*:

sometimes we love those that are absent, saith Philostratus, and gives instance in his friend Athenodorus, that loved a maid at Corinth whom he never saw

One of a series of recurring occasions, cases, essentially the same.

*

*

* 2010 , The Guardian , 11 Oct 2010:

The organisations claim fraudsters are targeting properties belonging to both individuals and companies, in some instances using forged documents.

(obsolete) A piece of evidence; a proof or sign (of something).

* c. 1594 , William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors :

The reason that I gather he is mad, Besides this present instance of his rage, Is a mad tale he told to day at dinner [...].

(computing) In object-oriented programming: a created object, one that has had memory allocated for local data storage; an instantiation of a class.

(massively multiplayer online games) A dungeon or other area that is duplicated for each player, or each party of players, that enters it, so that each player or party has a private copy of the area, isolated from other players.

* 2006 September 1, "Dan" (username), " Re: DPS Classes: Why should I heal you?", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:

As long as the most difficult instance you've tried is Gnomeregan, you're never going to be credible talking about 'difficult encounters'.

* 2010 , , Online Multiplayer Games , Morgan & Claypool, ISBN 9781608451425, page 26:

For example, when a team of five players enters the Sunken Temple instance in World of Warcraft , they will battle many monsters, but they will not encounter other players even though several teams of players may be experiencing the Sunken Temple at the same time.

* 2012 , anonymous gamer quoted in Andrew Ee & Hichang Cho, " What Makes an MMORPG Leader? A Social Cognitive Theory-Based Approach to Understanding the Formation of Leadership Capabilities in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games", Eludamos , volume 6, page 31:

Beating a difficult instance becomes second nature after running through it…a few times, with good leaders knowing exactly what to do and how to co-ordinate member actions.

(massively multiplayer online games) An individual copy of such a dungeon or other area.

* 2005 January 11, Patrick B., " Re: Instance dungeons", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:

The instance is created for the group that enters it.

* 2005 December 6, "Rene" (username), " Re: Does group leader affect drops?", in alt.games.warcraft, Usenet:

As soon as the first player enters (spawns) a new instance , it appears that the loottable is somehow chosen.

* 2010 , Anthony Steed & Manuel Fradinho Oliveira, Networked Graphics: Building Networked Games and Virtual Environments , Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-12-374423-4, page 398:

A castle on the eastern edge of the island spawns a new instance whenever a party of players enters.