Instrument
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
The writing which contains some agreement, and is so called because it has been prepared as a memorial of what has taken place or been agreed upon. Something reduced to writing as a means of evidence.
Abbott.
A will has been held to be an "instrument."
14 Eq. Cas. 402.
The agreement and the instrument in which it is contained are very different things, — the latter being only evidence of the existence of the former.