example vs instance

example

noun
  • A parallel or closely similar case, especially when serving as a precedent or model. 

  • Something that serves to illustrate or explain a rule. 

  • Something that serves as a pattern of behaviour to be imitated (a good example) or not to be imitated (a bad example). 

  • Something that is representative of all such things in a group. 

  • A person punished as a warning to others. 

  • An instance (as a problem to be solved) serving to illustrate the rule or precept or to act as an exercise in the application of the rule. 

verb
  • To be illustrated or exemplified (by). 

instance

noun
  • A case offered as an exemplification or a precedent; an illustrative example. 

  • A specific occurrence of something that is created or instantiated, such as a database, or an object of a class in object-oriented programming. 

  • Occasion; order of occurrence. 

  • A dungeon or other area that is duplicated for each player, or each party of players, that enters it, so that each player or party has a private copy of the area, isolated from other players. 

  • An individual copy of such a dungeon or other area. 

  • One of a series of recurring occasions, cases, essentially the same. 

verb
  • To mention as a case or example; to refer to; to cite 

  • To cite an example as proof; to exemplify. 

How often have the words example and instance occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )