instancing

Pluralinstancings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of instance.

   The professor was instancing cases where the theory broke down.

   Instancing too many exceptions weakened her overall argument.

   Note

   Every verb sense of instance runs through this form. Most often it means citing, and it then takes a direct object: instancing cases, instancing a precedent. It can also stand alone, as in arguing by instancing. Game design and graphics use it too, for instancing a dungeon for each party or instancing objects from shared geometry. The obsolete noun senses of instance, urgency and token, never reach this form.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The creation of a particular instance of something.

   Like a single printed copy that brings an abstract design into physical form.

   The instancing of the general principle in this experiment clarified its scope.

   Researchers documented each instancing of the pattern across the datasets.

   Similarexemplification, realization, occurrence

   Note

   A philosopher's noun for the move from type to token: a general kind, concept or principle gets a concrete case. It is countable, so it takes an article and a plural, as in an instancing of the principle or several instancings. Keep it apart from the verb form meaning "citing". One brings a case into being; the other only points to a case that already exists.

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