instantiate (in-STAN-she-ate)

1. to support or explain a concept by a real or tangible example. An apple instantiates the concept of “redness.”
2. to find or produce an instance of

[Mid-20th century. <instance]

instantiation, noun
instantiative, a dj.

. . . heroes instantiate ideals — W. J. Bennett

Dodd usefully distinguishes between questions about when properties such as being a son of Lincoln can be instantiated, and questions about whether such properties exist when they cannot be instantiated. –Franklin Bruno, from a review of “Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology,” by Julian Dodd, pub. 2007

Existence is not a property (in, say, the way that being red is a property of an apple). Rather it is a precondition for the instantiation of properties in the following sense: it is not possible for a non-existent thing to instantiate any properties because there is nothing to instantiate which, so to speak, a property can stick. Nothing has no qualities whatsoever. –‘The Ontological Argument, Kant's Criticism: Is Existence a Perfection?’ http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/ont-arg.htm

Crane’s poems instantiate a form of private experience that can be concealed no more than it can be revealed. - from Tim Dean, "Hart Crane’s Poetics of Privacy," American Literary History 8:1 (Spring 1996)

If I am driving and a moose runs out in front of my car, I have the mental event of shock. According to the MacDonalds, my mental event of shock is a co-instantiation of the physical property shock and the mental property shock. – Kathy Fazekas, ‘Commentary on Can Non-Reductive Materialism Escape from the Jaws of Epiphenomenalism?’, by Erica Shumener

In spite of the growing literature on the neural bases of emotion, we still know very little about the precise functions of key brain regions in the affective brain that instantiatethe emotional lives of humans. –Dr. Tor Wager, ‘Neuroimaging of Emotion’, Columbia University

The picture documents an instantiation of the concept, “taking a nap .” Photo by Salvatore Mele

simulacrum (sim-yuh-LEY-kruhm), noun, plural : simulacra

1. a merely superficial, vague or unreal semblance
2. an image or representation

[Latin simul&#257;crum from simul&#257;re, “to simulate” + -crum, n. suff.]

late 16th century, used to describe a representation of another thing, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god; by the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. -wikipedia

simulacral , (sim-yuh-LEY-kruhl) adjective
simulacre, (SIM-yuh-ley-ker) Archaic noun


Talk story about schoolchildren climbing a simulacrum Mt. Everest at the Rubin Museum. “The weird thing,” one of the guides said, “is that this feels and sounds exactly like base camp at Everest.” -Adam Gopnik, ‘Sherpa Sleepover’, The New Yorker, June 26, 2006

The popularity of reality television, with its contrived conflicts and hokey simulacra, demonstrates a conscious enjoyment of the unmistakably fake. –Rebecca Mead, ‘Letter From South Padre Island; Endless Spring,’ The New Yorker, Apr. 1, 2002

His correspondence with the Queen continued, and he appeared from time to time at Court; but he was a mere simulacrum of his former self; "the dream," wrote Victoria, "is past." -Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), ‘Queen Victoria’

''Las Vegas is a realization of the kingdom of God on earth,'' said Mark C. Taylor, who teaches philosophy and religion at Williams College, in Massachusetts, and is both a plenary speaker here and the creator of a philosophical video game set in Las Vegas. ''The culture of simulacra has become both all-encompassing and inescapable.'' -Sam Howe Verhovek, ‘Deep Thoughts in a City Better Known for Slots,’ NYTimes, March 13, 2001

Hanson’s eye-fooling simulacra of lumpen American folks—a janitor, a jogger, a pair of hefty tourists—are scattered throughout the museum, reliably triggering double and triple takes. –Peter Schjeldahl, ‘The Art World; England Swings’, The New Yorker, March 1, 2004

During the depressing simulacrum of an election campaign, Medvedev has been promoted assiduously on state television as a loyal and competent young man who will respond reliably to his master’s voice . . . –David Remnick, ‘Smoke on the Water,’ The New Yorker, March 10, 2008

Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum in The Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacrum

Faith, as blind simulacrum of certainty that things eagerly awaited for will actually happen and as conviction of facts that cannot be seen, is the powerful vector causing the coagulated blood to dissolve. –Lyslei de Souza Nascimento, ‘My Soul Is an Empty Inkwell’

deconstruction (dee-kuhn-STRUHK- shuhn), noun

A theory of literary criticism and also a philosophical movement questioning the usual assumptions about “certainty”, “identity” and “truth”, which maintains that words can only refer to more words, and statements about a text subvert their own meaning. –abtracted. from The Ame. Heritage Dictionary

“…questions all traditional assumptions about the ability of language to represent reality and emphasizes that a text has no stable reference or identification because words essentially only refer to other words and therefore a reader must approach a text by eliminating any metaphysical or ethnocentric assumptions through an active role of defining meaning, sometimes by a reliance on new word construction, etymology, puns, and other word play.” –from Random House Unabridged

“A method of analyzing texts based on the ideas that language is inherently unstable and shifting and that the reader rather than the author is central in determining meaning. It was introduced by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the late 1960s.” –Encarta Dictionary

related words:
deconstructive, adj.
deconstructionism, noun
deconstructionist, noun and adj.


A common conclusion was that the most appropriate response was to investigate the person of Jesus using all the newly-found analytical tools of the Enlightenment. This was best done by deconstructing the Bible as a literary source of data. - http://homepages.which.net/~radical.faith/thought/schweitzer.htm

Derrida’s style, then, enacts the deconstructive point that meaning is always elsewhere, a point also insisted upon over and over again by those religious thinkers (like St. Augustine) who warn us against the almost inevitable sin of idolatry, the sin of mistaking a historical, limited, partial meaning for the true meaning which always escapes and exceeds its momentary instantiations. –Stanley Fish, ‘Think Again,’ NYTimes, April 20, 2008

Deconstruction literally means 'taking apart' and should not be confused with destruction! I suggest that textual deconstruction involves examining a text contextually, bearing in mind the time and culture in which it was written, and the purpose for which it was written. –Derek Gillard

"Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible." -Jaques Derrida, Paper presented at Cardozo School of Law, N.Y. 1993

But if deconstructive and postmodernist arguments don’t have the negative effects cited by their detractors, neither do they have the positive effects celebrated by their champions. They do not for example lead us to be less dogmatic because in hearkening to them “we acquire a ‘soft’ stance on what we believe to be ‘true.’ We stop believing that our truth is THE truth and so we are always open for dialogue.” –Stanley Fish, ‘Think Again,’ NYTimes, April 20, 2008

"In deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, 'virtual texts' constructed by readers in their search for meaning" -Rebecca Goldstein

Mr. Derrida was known as the father of deconstruction, the method of inquiry that asserted that all writing was full of confusion and contradiction, and that the author's intent could not overcome the inherent contradictions of language itself, robbing texts - whether literature, history or philosophy - of truthfulness, absolute meaning and permanence. –Jonathan Kandell, ‘Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74,’ NYTimes, Oct. 10, 2004

"Many otherwise unmalicious people have in fact been guilty of wishing for deconstruction's demise - if only to relieve themselves of the burden of trying to understand it." -Mitchell Stephens, NYTimes, 1994

We can deconstruct the use of language to discover the conceptual oppositions on which the text rests. –Daniel Saunders, March 24, 2008

“…deconstructive epistemology (or hermeneutics) calls for humility within the search for knowledge.” -LeRon Shults, 21 Feb. 2007, http://leronshults.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/deconstructive_.html

pixilated, (PIC-suh-ley-tid) adj.


1. Behaving as if mentally unbalanced; very eccentric.
2. Whimsical; prankish; amusingly silly.
3. Slang Intoxicated; very drunk.

["mildly insane, bewildered, tipsy," 1848, from pixie (q.v.) + -lated, as in titillated, etc., perhaps influenced by or a variant of pixie-led. A New England dialect word popularized by 1936 by movie "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." –online etymological dictionary ]

related: pixilation, pixilator, pixie nouns
pixilate, verb

synonyms : besotted,

“No; pixilation has been kicking around the language for a half-century to describe a technique of cinematographers and stage managers to make human performers appear to move as if artificially animated. Using a stop-frame camera, the pixilator can distort and speed up the motion of actors, thereby making Mr. Jagger, perhaps growing lethargic with the years, look more frantically animated than ever. Based on that noun, the modern verb pixilate invites confusion with an earlier pixilated: "bemused, fey, whimsical" or "slightly and happily drunk." This is formed from the noun pixie, a mischievous sprite or fairy, who is pictured with a pointed, conical hat; it is not known if the pixie got his name from the pixie cap or vice versa. In coining the modern verb, did cinematographers intend the jerky movements of the subjects to reflect the older meaning connoting whimsy and tipsiness? This is like asking what came first, the pixie or the pixie cap. The solution to the confusion is this: Spell pixilated from the sprite, meaning "intoxicated," with an i after the x, and spell pixelate derived from the photographic technique with an e after the x. –William Safire, ‘On Language; Modem, I’m Odem’, NYTimes, 02 Apr 1995

He is pixilated on his own fairy dust, and the trail of grace notes that verge on the hyperbolic are his shout out to sanity; he's clearing his head and his lungs. –Elvis Mitchell, ‘Requiem for A Dream (2000),’ NYTimes, 06 Oct 2000

Ms. Deschanel, who alone is one of the best reasons to go to the movies these days, takes her few lines and sprinkles them through her scenes like fairy dust. This makes sense, because she's intensely pixilated -- a devil doll with a hunger for mischief. –Elvis Mitchell, ‘The Good Girl’, NYTimes, 07 Aug 2002



pixellated, or pixelated, adjective

A pixellated image is made up of pixels (= extremely small dots on a computer screen that viewed together make an image).

related: pixellation, pixel, nouns
pixelate, verb

Hence the notion of our own reality as an illusory projection of some flatlanders’ membrane world. It’s as though the pixilated [sic] people we see on television are real and the actors are only secondary manifestations. –George Johnson, ‘The Theory That Ate the World,’ NYTimes, 22 Aug 2008