prototype
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɹəʊtətaɪp/
ipa: /ˈpɹoʊtəˌtaɪp/
ipa: [ˈpɹoʊɾəˌtaɪp]
ipa: [ˈpɹoʊɾəˌtʌɪp]
ipa: /ˈpɹəʉtətɑep/
ipa: [ˈpɹəʉɾətɑep]
ipa: [ˈpɹɐʉɾətɑep]
ipa: /ˈpɹɐʉtətaɪp/
ipa: [ˈpɹɐʉɾətaɪp]
Forms: form: prototypes
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.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1658, Thomas Browne, “The Garden of Cyrus. […]. Chapter I.”, in Hydriotaphia, Urne-buriall, […] Together with The Garden of Cyrus, […], London: […] Hen[ry] Brome […], →OCLC, pages 102–103:
text: [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.
ref: 1694, [William Sherlock], A Defence of Dr. Sherlock’s Notion of a Trinity in Unity, […], London: Printed for W. Rogers, […], →OCLC, pages 28–29:
text: 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.
ref: 1839 August, “Plautus. …”, in Foreign Monthly Review, and Continental Literary Journal, volume I, number IV, London: D[avid] Nutt, […]; Dulau and Co., […]; Berlin: Asher; Paris: Gayet and Lebrun, →OCLC, page 417:
text: 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, […]
ref: 1872 October 31, “International Metric Commission”, in Nature: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science, volume VI, number 157, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, section III (In Reference to the Carrying Out of the Commission's Decision), article 34, page 544, column 2:
glosses: An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models.
examples: text: The prototype had loose wires and rough edges, but it worked.
text: 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.
ref: 1952 August, “[Washington Reporting] General Dynamics will Build Second Nuclear Sub”, in The Log, volume 47, number 9, Bristol, Conn.: Miller Freeman Publications, →OCLC, page 24, column 3:
text: 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.
ref: 1961 March, “Talking of trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 133:
glosses: An early sample or model built to test a concept or process.
examples: text: 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 in the program. / For example, / In program 1, the statement / void display_message(); / is a function prototype or declaration. Here void specifies that this function does not return any value, and the empty parenthesis^([sic – meaning parentheses]) indicate that it takes no parameters (arguments).
ref: 2005, J. B. Dixit, “Unit-5: Functions and Pointers”, in Sangeeta Dixit, editor, Fundamentals of Computing, new edition, New Delhi: Laxmi Publications, →ISBN, page 355:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A declaration of a function that specifies the name, return type, and parameters, but none of the body or actual code.
examples: text: A robin is a prototype of a bird; a penguin is not.
text: 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 bird is to propose that a class of similar creatures called robin is a prototype of bird.
ref: 2014, Cecil H. Brown, “A Survey of Category Types in Natural Language”, in S[avas] L. Tsohatzidis, editor, Meanings and Prototypes: Studies in Linguistic Categorization (Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, part 1 (On the Content of Prototype Categories: Questions of Word Meaning), page 23:
text: 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[…]. These linguists are reluctant to accept the idea that prototypicality might be relevant to grammar and that grammatical categories, like all other categories, can also display prototype effects.
ref: 2015, [anonymous], “Introduction”, in Words, Affixes, and Clitics as Prototype Categories: Seminar Paper, [Munich, Bavaria]: GRIN Verlag, →ISBN, page 2:
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
semantics
glosses: An instance of a category or a concept that combines its most representative attributes.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
motor-racing
racing
sports
glosses: 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.
Synonyms: sense: basis for other forms or objects
word: exemplar
sense: motorsport
word: racing prototype
sense: motorsport
word: sports prototype
sense: motorsport
word: prototype racecar
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototypal
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype-based
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype-based language
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype-based programming
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype-based scripting language
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype extension
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype-oriented
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype-oriented programming
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype pattern
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototype theory
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototypic
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototypical
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototypicality
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototypically
sense: Terms derived from prototype (noun)
word: prototyping
sense: motorsport
word: prototype racing
Related terms: antetype
first article