toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

instill
in a sentence

show 144 more with this conextual meaning
  • After a couple of years, the Captain raised Dad to section foreman, taught him how to lead men and operate and ventilate a mine, and instilled in him a vision of the town.   (source)
    instilled = put (ideas, principles, or teachings into another's mind)
  • The trials of my youth instilled a debilitating self-doubt.†   (source)
  • The lieutenant went on and on with his speech, which was a combination of instilling in the civilians that what we were doing was right and boosting the morale of his men, including us, the boys.†   (source)
  • I have tried to instill in my kids a love of reading and even encouraged them to write their own stories.†   (source)
  • Branching out on a different level, I enlisted in the United States Air Force, discovering historical values and an instilled sense of pride and belonging that until then, I had never known.†   (source)
  • As we tried to instill in each of our subjects over and over,WICKED is good.†   (source)
  • Perhaps it was the poetry that made him different, or perhaps it was the values his father had instilled in him, growing up.†   (source)
  • There was a newfound confidence there, something instilled in him through becoming a Two, becoming a soldier.†   (source)
  • I hate him for instilling awful things in my memory and somehow making me grieve for him in the midst of all the awful.†   (source)
  • The regulators are blaming Mr. and Mrs. Marks—and the whole extended family—for not instilling in her a proper education, and only a few days after she was supposedly found in Deering Oaks Park, I overhear my aunt and uncle whispering that both of Willow's parents have been fired from their jobs.†   (source)
  • DRACO: And Scorpius is a follower, not a leader, despite everything I've tried to instill in him.†   (source)
  • His focus is one instilled by mentors at the seminary: "Either we are with the poor, or we are not.†   (source)
  • In fact, I think growing up in New York City instilled you with a healthy amount of skepticism about the human race at large"" Hiccup.†   (source)
  • My siblings had already instilled the notion of black pride in me.†   (source)
  • In that first week, while we were trying to avoid freezing to death, they instilled in us three words which have been with me ever since.†   (source)
  • In his children he was trying to instill a sense of the value of work, the value of whatever came into their house, but he knew that much would be lost in the context, the waste and excess of the culture at large.†   (source)
  • He's Chicano like me, but I know how much he hates everything I am, as if I represent all the scorn, venom and fear instilled in him since a child.†   (source)
  • If properly summoned, the invisible forces could be persuaded to do a practitioner's bidding on earth …. thus instilling him with seemingly supernatural power.†   (source)
  • An attempt to instill order into a world gone wrong.†   (source)
  • I'll train the girl, teach her how to protect herself and instill in her how to control the magic of Air.†   (source)
  • But my years in Tarbean had instilled an iron-hard practicality.†   (source)
  • The evil lie about the pavilion of consumptives had ruined his sleep, for it had instilled in him the inconceivable idea that Fermina Daza was mortal and as a consequence might die before her husband.†   (source)
  • These have the least predisposition toward intellectuality from cultural sources and have the least formal training to instill it further into them.†   (source)
  • This agitator is attempting to break down all the sound values which the school and the church and we ourselves are trying to instill in the younger generation.†   (source)
  • I will do my very best to be a shining example of the high values that this, the first university in the New World, has instilled in its four hundred years of being a beacon of knowledge and a mine of wisdom to the finest minds that have been lucky enough to pass through the portals of this inspired community— Minerva says this is going on too long without the required mention of you-know-who.†   (source)
  • He instills confidence in his troops.†   (source)
  • Reporters didn't instill trust in people.†   (source)
  • Nor would it be enough to simply instill fear-for he knew that fear often made those in peril fight harder.†   (source)
  • If either I or the state of Arizona was going to instill in this child a sense of security, discussing her future and ownership as though she were an item of commerce wasn't the way to do it.†   (source)
  • If it strikes you as disgraceful that Chicago schoolteachers and University of Georgia professors will cheat—a teacher, after all, is meant to instill values along with the facts—then the thought of cheating among sumo wrestlers may also be deeply disturbing.†   (source)
  • After all, a city that had gone wild would not instill much confidence in potential business investors.†   (source)
  • Inside the cover, on the page opposite the chaplain's note, Adam had written, Dad: Thanks for instilling in me all that I have.†   (source)
  • Or three, someone in the hotel knows about the bomb-children and was able to remove it, put it in a plastic baggie, and conduct a seminar on how to instill panic and paranoia among the dopey humans.†   (source)
  • Time to instill knowledge!†   (source)
  • The erasure of individuality would create malleability to discipline; repetitive actions would instill that automatic response for which the services strove.†   (source)
  • They'd probably want to send me to the vamp equivalent of a shrink, and oh, boy, wouldn't that help me to instill confidence in the masses as the new leader of the Dark Daughters?†   (source)
  • The threat of Bologna to others had instilled in Doc Daneeka an even more poignant solicitude for his own safety.†   (source)
  • My mother love was very strong, and when I bound Jade's feet you will never know just how careful I was, remembering not only what had happened to Third Sister but also all the lessons my mother-in-law had instilled in me about how to do this job properly, with the least chance of infection, deformity, or death.†   (source)
  • Big fan of the thick leather belt to instill discipline.†   (source)
  • But my mother has instilled so many positive values in me it would be hard to even try to get on the wrong track.†   (source)
  • Whether the bat made a difference, or it was merely the confidence she instilled in Baltazar, he hit a single into left.†   (source)
  • Ah, yes, those indescribably glorious days, in which the Founder was building the dream not only here in this then barren valley, but hither and yonder throughout the land, instilling the dream in the hearts of the people.†   (source)
  • They trained you too well, instilled in you too completely the person you had to become.†   (source)
  • I wanted to touch her, to wipe them away, but deference, instilled in me since birth, stayed my hand.†   (source)
  • His smooth economical movements were like Jocelyn's, but the control with which he moved must have been instilled in him by Valentine.†   (source)
  • For as long as I can remember, this was instilled in me: to have fun, love Jesus and others, and tell them about Him.†   (source)
  • Public executions involved drowning the offender in pools of gray water, a prospect that instilled more fear in the Scabs than any other threat of death.†   (source)
  • If the emperor was a weak man, the sight of his mark would evoke laughter and contempt, but if he was a stern and powerful ruler, his mark would instill fear and trembling and obedience.†   (source)
  • It was she who instilled theatre in all of us.†   (source)
  • They instilled in their children and grandchildren that same love of country and a spirit of optimism.†   (source)
  • To get a point across, to instill guilt in your lover, to defend yourself.†   (source)
  • I now attribute my vain desire to my education, which had instilled in me the splendid and reckless belief that everything can be explained.†   (source)
  • Somehow she would have to instill courage into these eleven people, most of them strangers, would have to feed them on hope and bright dreams of freedom instead of the fried pork and corn bread and milk she had promised them.†   (source)
  • This disfigurement only added to the giant's stature, instilling the respect of fear in its normally unruly troops.†   (source)
  • During all of Phil's troubles, I felt like I was operating on my grandmother's faith and what she instilled in me.†   (source)
  • The seat next to her remained empty long after the economy passengers had boarded, instilling in her the hope she might not have to spend the next seven and half hours with a complete stranger.†   (source)
  • We don't have to do much discipline anymore because we instilled that respect when they were young.†   (source)
  • Men and women, Canadian and American, who have been born in the concept, instilled in the idea, of liberty.†   (source)
  • I flipped through the pages, noticing the dedication: Dedicated to My Dad and Mother and to the countless other Southern parents and educators who sincerely try to instill in their children and their students a love for all men and a respect for the dignity and worth of every man.†   (source)
  • It was also thought that this might serve to humanize it somewhat, so that it would better appreciate the significance of its work, to instill something like loyalty, you might say.†   (source)
  • Young lady, what you miscalled your 'moral instinct' was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal survival.†   (source)
  • He needs special attention, discipline that only I know how to instill.†   (source)
  • Even with her faults, Mom instilled in me a lifelong love of education and learning.†   (source)
  • A habit Joe Trivole instilled back in the Fuller Brush days.†   (source)
  • His twelve berserkers sacrificed their lives so their souls could instill the blade with power.†   (source)
  • All militaries harden their recruits, instill the basics, and bend young men to their will.†   (source)
  • Power goes to the one who instills the greatest fear, not so, Aleksei?†   (source)
  • "I know I've said this before, but Patch doesn't instill a deep sense of comfort in me," Vee said.†   (source)
  • The campus activities of these first two days are meant to instill pride of acceptance.†   (source)
  • We're all in it together, and the first thing they instill in you at Indoc is that you will live and train as a class, as a team.†   (source)
  • Now I feel it is doubly important to instill family dinnertime in the girls while they are still living at home.†   (source)
  • He couldn't blame them—he'd been young and untethered once, too—but he tried, whenever he could, to instill in them the knowledge that if they kept their heads down and saved a few dollars a week, they could live well, could raise a family doing this kind of work.†   (source)
  • I think one of the main reasons for that is, Phillip instilled the good habit of chewing sugar-free gum from a very early age in them.†   (source)
  • By the time I started at Ohio State, the Marine Corps had instilled in me an incredible sense of invincibility.†   (source)
  • I know he was doing it for our own good, trying to instill discipline in his sons, which would serve them well in later life.†   (source)
  • Did I say instill in you?†   (source)
  • With his twin-eagles insignia glinting on his collar, Captain Maguire instilled in us the knowledge of what really counted.†   (source)
  • If a man was prone to losing it under the water when he was bound hand and foot, then he was probably never going to be a frogman; the fear is too deeply instilled.†   (source)
  • That interview instilled In Meme the same feeling of bravery that she had felt on the drunken evening.†   (source)
  • It seems that by the time you get to your fourth child, your desire to instill certain values goes out the window.†   (source)
  • I was trying to instill a new work ethic and culture in Duck Commander, and I couldn't have Si sleeping on the job!†   (source)
  • He was tired, and he was drunk, he now knew unequivocally that he was drunk, and one should not call one's daughter in such a state, especially when trying to instill her with confidence about his ability to provide for her.†   (source)
  • Rather, he had to instill a sense of purpose and destiny, to make the villagers believe, as he did, that joining the Varden and resisting Galbatorix's tyranny was the noblest action in the world.†   (source)
  • As hard as Kay and I worked to instill morals, principles, and a belief in what's right and wrong in each of our sons, it wasn't always easy.†   (source)
  • During the crushing insomnia brought on by his asthma he would measure and remeasure the depth of his misfortune as he went through the shadowy house where the senile fussing of Ursula had instilled a fear of the world in him.†   (source)
  • I didn't know why the safety mattered since I only had one shell, but he wanted to instill the practice in my brain.†   (source)
  • The purpose of the assignment is to instill a degree of contentiousness on the part of the one driving the car.†   (source)
  • I personally pointed out that the assignment wasn't very realistic, but it was explained to me that instilling the attitude was important.†   (source)
  • There is a Snake Lady and she instills extraordinary devotion and fear in high places-which means that female serpent is not without power.†   (source)
  • In her own eyes Mrs. Brown felt as though she was instilling values into the children that their likker-swilling, devil-dancing, illiterate parents. could never do.†   (source)
  • You would find it much easier than to instill moral virtue — social responsibility — into a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and resents having the burden thrust on him.†   (source)
  • In fact, their coming to the island instilled a hope that many of the children's problems could be solved by a saturation of fresh ideas and faces.†   (source)
  • "I don't know," he had answered grimly, "except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who called themselves 'social workers' or sometimes 'child psychologists.'†   (source)
  • I had an impression that, glancing out from the partitions where she observed, with her dotty, smarting, all-interfering face, she was bent on pulling whom she wanted to her, to infuse and instill.†   (source)
  • Calmly they denied, in the teeth of the evidence, that we had ever known a crazy world in which men were killed off like flies, or that precise savagery, that calculated frenzy of the plague, which instilled an odious freedom as to all that was not the here and now; or those charnel-house stenches which stupefied whom they did not kill.†   (source)
  • * He was the inventor of the shepherd's pipe, which he played for the dances of the nymphs, and the satyrs were his male companions. t The emotion that he instilled in human beings who by accident adventured into his domain was "panic" fear: a sudden, groundless fright.†   (source)
  • All the courtesy, all the gentleness Ellen had striven to instill in her had fallen away from her as quickly as leaves fall from trees in the first chill wind of autumn.†   (source)
  • I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drug-store Romeos with reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe!†   (source)
  • Once more, I glanced up at her and once more I met her eyes, dark and sombre, in that white face of hers, instilling into me, I knew not why, a strange feeling of disquiet, of foreboding.†   (source)
  • I headed for Einhorn's, and on the boulevard, where the trees had begun to bud in the favorite purple of Chicago April evening, instilled with carbon and with the smells of crocodile beds of guck from the cleaned sewers, by the lamps of the synagogue, people were coming out in new coats and business hats, with square velvet envelopes for their prayer things.†   (source)
  • A fearful, apocalyptic name, very much calculated to instill secret terrors.†   (source)
  • He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled.†   (source)
  • No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre whom he saw only occasionally.†   (source)
  • Golenishtchev never let slip an opportunity of instilling sound ideas about art into Mihailov.†   (source)
  • The sentiment they instill is of more value than any thought they may contain.†   (source)
  • Because it has instilled a new passion in your heart—that of vengeance.†   (source)
  • The sufferings of the first six years of her life had instilled something passive into her nature.†   (source)
  • I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences.†   (source)
  • She saw now what his hope had been-that she would have instilled into her blood the subtle, red, and revivifying essence of calling life in the open, the strength of the wives of earlier years, an emanation from canyon, desert, mountain, forest, of health, of spirit, of forward-gazing natural love, of the mysterious saving instinct he had gotten out of the West.†   (source)
  • And now Settembrini had spoken the word he evidently believed would instill true terror, had held up the Gorgon's head at the sight of which everyone would dutifully turn ashen.†   (source)
  • It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.†   (source)
  • He who has seen her smile has known perfection, —Instilling into trifles grace's essence, Divinity in every careless gesture; Not Venus' self can mount her conch blown sea-ward, As she can step into her chaise a porteurs, Nor Dian fleet across the woods spring-flowered, Light as my Lady o'er the stones of Paris!†   (source)
  • She seemed to possess by instinct all the household wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him.†   (source)
  • The breaking of their solitude, though by a well-meaning friend, had not only dispelled all its dream and much of its charm, but had instilled a canker of fear.†   (source)
  • It seemed to him that all his life he had followed the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings, had instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart.†   (source)
  • And so he had never heard of the refined priestly concept of indulgence, under which even a sacrament was included—marriage, to be precise, which unlike the other sacraments was not a positive good, but a defense against sin, conferred solely to limit sensual desire and to instill moderation, so that the ascetic principle, the ideal of chastity, might be affirmed without defying the flesh with unpolitic severity?†   (source)
  • Besides, religion is a matter of temperament; you will believe anything if you have the religious turn of mind, and if you haven't it doesn't matter what beliefs were instilled into you, you will grow out of them.†   (source)
  • And yet we are not fabricating tales here, but are keeping exactly to our prosaic hero's personal experience— knowledge of which has been granted to us in ways that, to be sure, elude all investigation, but that plainly prove that under certain circumstances stupor can take on such character and instill such feelings.†   (source)
  • …tragedy of a great failure—ever since that turning point, it had seemed to the young man as if there were something uncanny about the world and life, as if there were something peculiar, something increasingly askew and disquieting about it, as if a demon had seized power, an evil and crazed demon, who had long exercised considerable influence, but now declared his lordship with such unrestrained candor that he could instill in you secret terrors, even prompt you to think of fleeing.†   (source)
  • I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged.†   (source)
  • Having prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever.†   (source)
  • His childhood's sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away.†   (source)
  • Whether or no Beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce and subtle poison into his system.†   (source)
  • With the same unerring instinct Mr. Stelling set to work at his natural method of instilling the Eton Grammar and Euclid into the mind of Tom Tulliver.†   (source)
  • And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us.†   (source)
  • My plan is one for instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins.†   (source)
  • And, however much it was instilled into the princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable playthings for children five years old ought to be loaded pistols.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a costume selected with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her children.†   (source)
  • Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his lineage; he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the present owner of the Heights: but his dread of that owner amounted to superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations.†   (source)
  • , of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.†   (source)
  • I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as — under any pretext — with any justification — through any temptation — to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory.†   (source)
  • The god who girdles earth, even as he spoke, struck both men with his staff, instilling fury, making them springy, light of foot and hand.†   (source)
  • Nectar and ambrosia she instilled within Akhilleus, that his knees be not assailed by hollow famine; then she withdrew to her mighty father's house.†   (source)
  • Then, turning, to Patroklos, she instilled red nectar and ambrosia in his nostrils to keep his body whole.†   (source)
  • Power in his shoulders she instilled, and gristle in his knees, and in his heart the boldness of a shad fly fiercely brushed away, but mad to bite, as human blood is ambrosial drink to him.†   (source)
  • Heaven gives one man skill in arms, another skill in dancing, and a third man skill at gittern harp and song; but the Lord Zeus who views the wide world has instilled clear thought in yet another.†   (source)
  • Sewing, stitching, any labour, Having always work to do, To the poison Love instilleth Is the antidote most sure.†   (source)
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-eth" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She instilleth" in older English, today we say "She instills."
  • …and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and thanked him with perfect aplomb, saying: Thank you, sir, though in a very different tone of…†   (source)
  • The American, like the Elizabethan Englishman, is usually quite unconscious of them and even when they have been instilled into him by the hard labor of pedagogues he commonly pays little heed to them in his ordinary discourse.†   (source)
  • "And I have instilled principles into him too," cries Square.†   (source)
  • Their skill in military affairs increases their courage: and the wise sentiments which, according to the laws of their country, are instilled into them in their education, give additional vigour to their minds: for as they do not undervalue life so as prodigally to throw it away, they are not so indecently fond of it as to preserve it by base and unbecoming methods.†   (source)
  • …not by the Law it selfe, but by their own private Judgements; That Subjects sinne in obeying the Commands of the Common-wealth, unlesse they themselves have first judged them to be lawfull: That their Propriety in their riches is such, as to exclude the Dominion, which the Common-wealth hath over the same: That it is lawfull for Subjects to kill such, as they call Tyrants: That the Soveraign Power may be divided, and the like; which come to be instilled into the People by this means.†   (source)
  • But to nobler sights Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed, Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight Had bred; then purged with euphrasy and rue The visual nerve, for he had much to see; And from the well of life three drops instilled.†   (source)
  • Author of evil, unknown till thy revolt, Unnamed in Heaven, now plenteous as thou seest These acts of hateful strife, hateful to all, Though heaviest by just measure on thyself, And thy adherents: How hast thou disturbed Heaven's blessed peace, and into nature brought Misery, uncreated till the crime Of thy rebellion! how hast thou instilled Thy malice into thousands, once upright And faithful, now proved false!†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)