instead.
In the place of something (usually mentioned earlier); as a substitute or alternative.
Meaning & usage
In the place of something (usually mentioned earlier); as a substitute or alternative.
I was going to go shopping, but I went dancing instead.
Where this word comes from
From in + stead, from Middle English ine (“in”) + stede (“stead”). Related to German statt.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.