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say it: IN-stuhnt
instant is an adjective and noun meaning "occurring with no delay". It carries 5 recorded senses.
occurring with no delay
“relief was instantaneous”
“instant gratification”
demanding attention
“clamant needs”
“a crying need”
“regarded literary questions as exigent and momentous”
“insistent hunger”
“an instant need”
a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or the heart to beat)
“if I had the chance I'd do it in a flash”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for instant come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.