Prototype

/ˈpɹəʊtətaɪp/ · noun

Meaning

An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models..

Definitions by Sense

1. An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models.
2. An early sample or model built to test a concept or process.
3. (computing) A declaration of a function that specifies the name, return type, and parameters, but none of the body or actual code.
4. (semantics) An instance of a category or a concept that combines its most representative attributes.
5. (motor racing) 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.
6. (transitive) To create a prototype of.
7. (transitive, rare) To imitate or emulate.

Example Sentences

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 was the Paradiſe of God, as the Learned Abramas hinteth, he was not far from the Prototype and originall of Plantations.

[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 Attributes of the ſame Deity, but each is the whole, the Prototype, and its living Image is.

Only one manuscript of Plautus seems to have escaped the general wreck of ancient literature; and it served as the prototype to all the manuscripts at present extant.

The making of the new prototypes of the metre and the kilogramme, the tracing of the metres, the comparison of the new prototypes with those of the Archives, as well as the construction of the auxillary apparatus necessary to these operations, are entrusted to the care of the French section, with the concurrence of the Permanent Committee, […]

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 jointly by the A.E.C.'s Argonne National Laboratory and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, is now being built by Westinghouse, also under contract to the A.E.C.

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 long and exhaustive tests before plans are made to put it into service.

Synonyms for prototype

Antonyms for prototype

Related Words

Word Forms

• prototypes
• prototyping
• prototyped

Usage Notes

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