Prototype

Quick meaning: Prototype is a noun meaning An early sample or model built to test a concept or process.

Meaning

An early sample or model built to test a concept or process.

More Meanings

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

Example Sentences

Near-synonym: archetype (sometimes synonymous)

The prototype had loose wires and rough edges, but it worked.

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.

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.

Word Forms

• prototypes
• prototyping
• prototyped

Synonyms for prototype

Depending on context, synonyms include exemplar, archetype, paradigm, epitome, image.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include epitome, paradigm, image, prototyping, sample, experimental.

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