prototype
An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models.
Noun
- An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models.
- Near-synonym: archetype (sometimes synonymous)
- And if Jordan were but Jaar Eden, that is, the Riuer of Eden, Geneſar but Ganſar or the Prince of Gardens; and it could be made out, that the Plain of Jordan were watered not comparatively, but cauſally, and becauſe it...
- [T]his Holy Trinity is not Three Divine Attributes, ſuch as Wiſdom, Power, and Goodneſs; for they are all Three the very ſame with each other, the ſame Wiſdom, Goodneſs, and Power, and therefore not Three Parts or...
Synonyms: archetype
Coordinate Terms: stereotype
- An early sample or model built to test a concept or process.
- The prototype had loose wires and rough edges, but it worked.
- General Electric, under contract to the A.E.C., is now building a land-based prototype of this nuclear-power plant at West Milton, N.Y. A land-based prototype of the nuclear-power plant for the "Nautilus," developed...
- Unfortunately however, what may seem on paper an ideal specification for a particular type of machine does not always prove to be so in practice and the German Federal Railway submits prototypes of every new design to...
- A declaration of a function that specifies the name, return type, and parameters, but none of the body or actual code.
- Like any variable in a C program it is necessary to prototype or declare a function before its use, if it returns a value other than an int. It informs the compiler that the function would be referenced at a later stage...
- An instance of a category or a concept that combines its most representative attributes.
- A robin is a prototype of a bird; a penguin is not.
- If the robin is the prototype of bird, do particular examples of robin constitute that prototype for different people? I think not. Rather, prototypes are themselves categories. Thus, to say that a robin is a prototypic...
- Although it is common knowledge today that a great many linguistic categories are, indeed, prototype categories[…], a number of linguists still perceive grammatical categories as being classical in their nature[…]....
- A type of race car, a racing sports car not based on a production car. A 4-wheeled cockpit-seating car built especially for racing on sports car circuits, that does not use the silhouette related to a consumer road car.
Origin
From French prototype or Late Latin prototypon, from Ancient Greek πρωτότυπος (prōtótupos, “original; prototype”), from πρωτο- (prōto-, “first”) (from πρῶτος (prôtos, “first; earliest”)) + τῠ́πος (tŭ́pos, “blow, pressing; sort, type”) (from τύπτω (túptō, “to beat, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewp- (“to push; to stick”)). The word is analysable as proto- + -type.
Forms
Synonyms
exemplar racing prototype sports prototype prototype racecar
Related
Derived
pretotype prototypable prototypal prototype-based prototype-based language prototype-based programming prototype-based scripting language prototype extension prototype-oriented prototype-oriented programming prototype pattern prototype theory prototypic prototypical prototypicality prototypically prototyping prototype racing
Verb
- To create a prototype of.
- In short, he has purposely perverted the whole case from beginning to end, and distorted it in such a manner, as not to be prototyped except by his own mind; […] - 1807 July, Alex. Denmark, “[Mr. Denmark, in Answer to...
- [Y]ou may form acquaintance with the Wye before it sees the light, by penetrating that interesting cavern, Poole's Hole, as I have several times before. It is a wondrous place, and worthy of a far more dignified name; a...
- [W]hatsoe'er the poet sings, / Of prototyped in nature or in man, / Moves deeply, though it touch not wrath of kings / Or frantic battle-van. - 1859, Frederic W[illiam] H[enry] Myers, “Burns Centenary Poems. I.”, in...
- To imitate or emulate.