token
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtəʊkən/
enpr: tōk′ən
ipa: /ˈtoʊkən/
rhymes: -əʊkən
Forms: form: tokens
Etymology: From Middle English token, taken, from Old English tācn (“sign, symbol”), from Proto-West Germanic *taikn, from Proto-Germanic *taikną (“indicator, symbol, sign”), from Proto-Indo-European *deyḱ- (“to show, instruct, teach”) with Germanic *k rather than *h by Kluge's law. Cognate with Scots takin, taiken (“token, sign”), Saterland Frisian Teken (“sign, symbol”), West Frisian teken (“sign, mark, symbol”), Dutch teken (“sign, indication, symbol”), German Low German Teken (“sign, symbol”), German Zeichen (“sign, token”), Danish tegn (“sign, token, character”), Swedish tecken (“sign, indication”), Faroese tekn, tekin (“mark, sign, signal”), Icelandic teikn (“sign, omen”), Icelandic tákn (“symbol”).
The verb is from Middle English toknen, from Old English tācnian.
Senses: examples: text: According to the Bible, the rainbow is a token of God's covenant with Noah.
synonyms: sign
symbol
pledge
glosses: Something serving as an expression of something else.
examples: text: Please accept this bustier as a token of our time together.
synonyms: memento
souvenir
glosses: A keepsake.
examples: text: Subway tokens are being replaced by magnetic cards.
text: A book token is the easiest option for a Christmas gift.
glosses: A piece of stamped metal or plastic, etc., used as a form of currency; a voucher that can be exchanged for goods or services.
examples: text: Everyone pick a token (hat, wheelbarrow, thimble, etc.) and place it on the Start square.
glosses: A small physical object, often designed to give the appearance of a common thing, used to represent a person or character in a board game or other situation.
examples: text: His apology was no more than a token.
glosses: A minor attempt for appearance's sake, or to minimally comply with a requirement; a formality.
examples: text: New York Philharmonic has a token of one Negro. The Pittsburgh Symphony ranks high with three tokens. Cleveland has one, and other major symphony orchestras such as Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago still say, "Get back!"
ref: 1968, Ave Maria, volume 108, page 17:
text: Five women were tokens on both counts. Comparing racial tokens to nontokens, tokens reported significantly less favorable interpersonal interactions with their White male colleagues.
ref: 2005, Morris Fromkin, edited by Peter G. Watson-Boone, The Quest for Social Justice III, page 61:
text: They were tokens, however: the majority of oppressed people will not experience these benefits. Tokens were used to pacify the masses and provide the mirage that racism was no longer a factor
ref: 2013, Robert J. Durán, Gang Life in Two Cities: An Insider's Journey, page 208:
text: Women and racial minorities (e.g., blacks, Hispanics, Asians) often are tokens in organizations or in organizational groups (e.g., departments, boards of directors, management).
ref: 2013, Vicki Smith, Sociology of Work: An Encyclopedia, page 485:
glosses: A minor attempt for appearance's sake, or to minimally comply with a requirement; a formality.
A member of a group of people that is included within a larger group to comply with a legal or social requirement.
glosses: Evidence, proof; a confirming detail; physical trace, mark, footprint.
synonyms: reason
reasoning
glosses: Support for a belief; grounds for an opinion.
synonyms: miracle
glosses: An extraordinary event serving as evidence of supernatural power.
synonyms: password
glosses: An object or disclosure to attest or authenticate the bearer or an instruction.
glosses: A seal guaranteeing the quality of an item.
examples: text: Say, by this token, I desire his company.
ref: c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
text: And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 3:12:
glosses: Something given or shown as a symbol or guarantee of authority or right; a sign of authenticity, of power, good faith.
glosses: A tally.
topics: human-sciences
philosophy
sciences
glosses: A particular thing to which a concept applies.
examples: text: For each lexeme, the scanner creates a small data package known as a token and passes this data package on to the parser.
ref: 2004, Randall Hyde, Write Great Code: Understanding the Machine, page 68:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
synonyms: symbol
coordinate_terms: lexeme
;
placeholder
glosses: An atomic piece of data, such as a word, for which a meaning may be inferred during parsing.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A conceptual object that can be possessed by a computer, process, etc. in order to regulate a turn-taking system such as a token ring network.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A meaningless placeholder used as a substitute for sensitive data.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: A lexeme; a basic, grammatically indivisible unit of a language such as a keyword, operator or identifier.
examples: text: However, note the token ontology, ranked the 15ᵗʰ most frequent token in our ontology corpus, occurs 1940 times out of 336,311 tokens, but ontology only occurs 52 times in the BNC – the ratio of two relative frequencies is 10895.
ref: 2007, Khurshid Ahmad, “Artificial Ontologies and Real Thoughts: Populating the Semantic Web?”, in Roberto Basili, Maria Teresa Pazienza, editors, AI*IA 2007: Artificial Intelligence and Human-Oriented Computing, Springer-Verlag, page 10:
antonyms: type
qualifier: corpus linguistics
glosses: A single example of a certain word in a text or corpus.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: A characteristic sign of a disease or of a bodily disorder, a symptom; a sign of a bodily condition, recovery, or health.
examples: text: Like the fearful tokens of the plague, Are mere fore-runners of their ends.
ref: 1610–1614, John Fletcher, “The Tragedie of Valentinian”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act V, scene iv:
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: A livid spot upon the body, indicating, or supposed to indicate, the approach of death.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: Ten and a half quires, or, commonly, 250 sheets, of paper printed on both sides; also, in some cases, the same number of sheets printed on one side, or half the number printed on both sides.
examples: text: But the coal-owner refuses to pay for a corf or tub simply on the ground that it contains too little weight, or that it contains “softs” instead of all “hards,”—a refusal technically known by its symbol as “hanging the motties," or by a bolder metaphor as “hanging the hutches,”—the “motties,” or tokens peculliar to the collier who sends up the corf. being hung up, if satisfactory, on the proper “motty-board peg,” if not so, on the “death-board peg;” and it is asserted that “at some collieries as many as 60 or 70 each day, worth to the collier from 6d. to 8. each, are taken from them in this manner.”
ref: 1864 August 6, “Miners and Their Grievances”, in The Spectator, volume 37, number 1884, page 902:
text: But worse still was the practice of defrauding them of their earnings, for as their “tokens” were put on to the outside of the tubs it often happened that hundreds were taken off and thrown away; so that they often found, to their exceeding chagrin, when they came to bank, that after having put up with all the abuse and ill-treatment in the mine they had got little or nothing for working all day.
ref: 1873, Richard Fynes, The Miners of Northumberland and Durham, page 110:
text: The “token” is simply a small piece of leather with a given number upon it, and as the colliers work in pairs--not at the same time, but in succession, the one man taking the “fore shift,” the other the “back shift,”—each pair has a specific number, and round the “token” cabin are ranged hooks also numbered to correspond with the tokens the colliers take down with them into the mine; every tub laden with coal that comes to bank has in it one of these “tokens,” and the business of token-keeper is to secure these and lodge them upon their corresponding hooks, so that at the end of each shift, or day of labour, the colliers knows how many tubs he has sent “to bank”.
ref: 1877, “Northern Industries”, in The Primitive Methodist Magazine, page 172:
topics: business
mining
glosses: A bit of leather having a peculiar mark designating a particular miner. Each hewer sent one of these with each corf or tub he had hewn.
topics: business
mining
glosses: A thin bed of coal indicating the existence of a thicker seam at no great distance.
examples: text: Although splitting a single-line section into two might seem a simple solution, Williams adds that creating another location where drivers have to get out of the cab and walk to a cabinet to exchange tokens before a train can proceed will further slow down the service: "There must be a better option in the 21st century than putting in an additional token machine."
ref: 2020 January 2, Graeme Pickering, “Fuelling the changes on Teesside rails”, in Rail, page 61:
topics: rail-transport
railways
transport
glosses: A physical object used for exchange between drivers and signalmen on single track lines.
topics: business
manufacturing
textiles
weaving
glosses: In a loom, a colored signal to show the weaver which shuttle to use.
qualifier: Church of Scotland
glosses: A piece of metal given beforehand to each person in the congregation who is permitted to partake of the Lord's Supper.
Derived terms: abbey token
access token
book token
bride token
by that token
by the same token
Conder token
CSRF token
foretoken
fungible token
gift token
God's token
hard-times token
honeytoken
in token of
love token
milk token
more betoken
more by token
non-fungible token
non-tangible token
nontoken
subtoken
super-token
that and a token will get you on the subway
token bucket
token economy
tokenisation
tokenish
tokenism
tokenist
tokenistic
tokenization
tokenize
tokenless
tokenlike
token money
tokenomics
token-pasting operator
token ring
token strike
tokenwise
type-token distinction
type-token ratio
USB token
voken
Related terms: topics: philosophy
human-sciences
sciences
word: particular
topics: philosophy
human-sciences
sciences
word: universal
topics: philosophy
human-sciences
sciences
word: type