instars

Noun

instar (plural instars)

1. Any one of the several stages of postembryonic development which an arthropod undergoes, between molts, before it reaches sexual maturity.
2. An arthropod at a specified one of these stages of development.
   • In A. orientalis, first and second instars were more susceptible than third instars to H. bacteriophora TF strain, […]2005, Nematodes as biocontrol agents, edited by Parwinder S. Grewal, Ralf-Udo Ehlers, and David I. Shapiro-Ilan, (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 133
3. (broadly) A stage in development.
   • We avoided Tourist Homes, country cousins of Funeral ones, old-fashioned, genteel and showerless, with elaborate dressing tables in depressingly white-and-pink little bedrooms, and photographs of the landlady’s children in all their instars.1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC, part 2, page 148

See all 5 meanings of instar