for instance

Pluralfor instances

1. 1
   adverb

   Used to introduce a specific example that illustrates a more general point just made.

   The museum displays art from many cultures; Japanese ceramics, for instance, fill an entire wing.

   For instance, if you double the recipe, you also have to double the baking time.

   Note

   A linking adverb that moves freely through its clause. It can open the sentence, or sit just after the item it singles out, as in Walter Besant's "Mr. Checkly, for instance, always brought his dinner." It can also close a clause, as in Edith Wharton's "such as today's, for instance." Commas usually set it off, though Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary leaves them out: "yesterday for instance."

2. 2
   nouncolloquialcountable

   An example, especially one offered or requested to back up a general claim.

   When he insisted that prices had risen, she demanded a for instance.

   Give me a for instance, and then I'll decide whether your theory holds.

   Similarexample, illustration

   Note

   Here the whole phrase is turned into a noun. It takes an article ("a for instance") and forms its plural by adding -s at the very end: for instances. It belongs to casual talk, where someone demands or offers a concrete case; in more formal writing, plain example does the same work. Think of it as the linking adverb made into something you can ask for.

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