I lay awake nights, wishing to find the perfect lens an instrument of great magnifying power.

VOA: special.2009.07.18

It's not me. I'm just an instrument of somebody else telling me what to do.

不是我的责任，我只是一个工具,我只是执行别人的命令。

耶鲁公开课 - 心理学导论课程节选

you make a little hole, and go in with an instrument instead of making an incision.

医生会先打开一个小孔，将仪器伸进去。而不是像以前一样做一个切口。

MIT用数字说话 - SpeakingMax英语口语达人

On an acoustic guitar, the strings vibrate and the hollow part of the instrument, or the sound box,also vibrates.

VOA: special.2009.09.27

And, in a similar point, he maintains that punishment can never be used as an instrument of revenge but only for what he calls the correction or what we would call the rehabilitation of the offender.

同时他还认为,法律上的惩罚是不能作为复仇的工具,而当作为纠正罪犯过错的工具,即我们今天叫的,对罪犯进行改造。

耶鲁公开课 - 政治哲学导论课程节选

He says he dreamed of placing just such an instrument on the National Mall.

VOA: special.2009.10.27

We call an instrument of the U.S. Treasury with a maturity less than or equal to one year--we call that a bill and they used to be the only discount bonds issued by the U.S. Government.

我们把期限小于或等于一年的,国库券品种称为短期国库券,它们曾是美国政府,唯一发行的贴现债券

耶鲁公开课 - 金融市场课程节选

For those of you don't know what that is it's simply an instrument that counts radioactive particles in the air, and MIT now that you're at MIT, you'll all have a chance to see one first hand if you're ever in any of the labs, especially in the chemistry or bio labs.

不知道它是什么,它就是一个简单的,计算在空气中放射粒子数目的仪器,你们现在来了，如果你们在实验室里工作的话,尤其是化学和生物实验室，你们有很多机会亲手用到它。

麻省理工公开课 - 化学原理课程节选