prototype
/ˈpɹoʊtəˌtaɪp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.83 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models.
noun
A declaration of a function that specifies the name, return type, and parameters, but none of the body or actual code.
noun
An instance of a category or a concept that combines its most representative attributes.
noun
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)"
- "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."
Etymology
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.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈpɹoʊtəˌtaɪp/
- British English: /ˈpɹəʊtətaɪp/