Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Noun.

;

pl.

Instrumentalities

The quality or condition of being instrumental; that which is instrumental; anything used as a means; medium; agency.

The

instrumentality

of faith in justification.

Bp. Burnet.

The discovery of gunpowder developed the science of attack and defense in a new

instrumentality

J. H. Newman.

Noun.

Subordinate or auxiliary agency; agency of any thing as means to an end; as the instrumentality of second causes.

instrumentality ‎(plural instrumentalities)

(uncountable) The quality or condition of being instrumental; serving a purpose, being useful.
- 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, p. 294:
  In a later vision the Saviour revealed to her in detail the ‘great design’ which he wished to establish through her instrumentality.
(countable, law) A governmental organ with a specific purpose.
- 1994, Title 17 of the United States Code, §104A(a)(1)(B):
  Any work in which the copyright was ever owned or administered by the Alien Property Custodian and in which the restored copyright would be owned by a government or instrumentality thereof, is not a restored work.
(countable) Something that is instrumental; an instrument
- 1838, American Anti-Slavery Society, The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4:
  He spoke of the various instrumentalities which were now employed for the conversion of the world.
- 1873, Helen Hunt Jackson, Bits About Home Matters:
  Delays and failures will only set her to casting about for new instrumentalities.
- 1914, Samuel F. B. Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals:
  God works by instrumentalities, and he has wonderfully thus far interposed in keeping evils that I feared in abeyance.