You can picture 'instrument' as a made, purpose-built thing you pick up to get a specific job done — not a blunt everyday tool like a hammer, but something shaped and equipped for careful, exact work: the fine blade in a surgeon's hand, the dial that reads a value. From that 'a made thing that gets a job done' picture, the word stretches from real objects to any means used to reach a result.
From the word’s history
From Latin 'instrumentum' = 'tool, equipment, apparatus', from 'instruere' = 'to arrange, prepare, equip' (in- + struere 'to build, pile up'). So an instrument is literally something you are equipped or furnished with to do a job — the sense of 'a made means to get work done' sits right at the root.
來自拉丁文 instrumentum（工具、器材、設備），源自 instruere（安排、準備、裝配；in- ＋ struere「堆疊、建造」）。所以 instrument 字面上就是「為了做事而被配備、備妥的東西」——「做出來用來把工作辦成的手段」這個意思，正好就在字根裡。
Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com/word/instrument)
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料10 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
instrumentnoun/ˈɪnstɹəmənt/
- 1
A device used to produce music.
- The violinist was a master of her instrument.
- The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge
- 2
A means or agency for achieving an aspect.
- “There the cause of death was soon ascertained ; the victim of this daring outrage had been stabbed to death from ear to ear with a long, sharp instrument, in shape like an antique stiletto, which […] was subsequently found under the cushions of the hansom. […]”
- On the rocky island of Tungyin, 50 miles off the coast of Red China, is the headquarters of a little-known military unit called the Anti-Communist Salvation Army. The secret army, 30,000 strong, is Chiang Kai-shek's instrument for the long-promised return to the mainland.
- 3
A measuring or displaying device.
- The instrument detected an increase in radioactivity.
- 4
A tool, implement used for manipulation or measurement.
- The dentist set down his tray of instruments.
- The scientist recorded the temperature with a thermometer, but wished he had a more accurate instrument.
- 5
lawA legal document, such as a contract, deed, trust, mortgage, power, indenture, or will, or any of a class of negotiable ones (which can be exchanged for value or money).
- A bond indenture is the instrument that gives a bond its value.
- Negotiable instruments are the foundation of the debt markets.
- 6
A person used as a mere tool for achieving a goal.
- Or useful serving man and instrument, / To any sovereign state.
- The bold are but the instruments o' the wise.
instrumentverb/ˈɪnstɹəmənt/
- 1
To apply measuring devices.
- an instrumented test article
- 2
To devise, conceive, cook up, plan.
- When the Lit. Mongers deign to notice his work, they dismiss him as a "cult writer," another of their standard ploys. Purdy, not really bitter at the instrumented silence and sneers of the bookchat legions, […]
- 3
To perform upon an instrument; to prepare for an instrument.
- a sonata instrumented for orchestra
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
- flight instrument
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。