prototype
[proh-tuh-tahyp]
- the original or model on which something is based or formed.
- someone or something that serves to illustrate the typical qualities of a class; model; exemplar: She is the prototype of a student activist.
- something analogous to another thing of a later period: a Renaissance prototype of our modern public housing.
- Biology. an archetype; a primitive form regarded as the basis of a group.
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- to create the prototype or an experimental model of: to prototype a solar-power car.
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Origin of prototype
Synonyms
See more synonyms for prototype on Thesaurus.com1. pattern.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for prototype
Contemporary Examples
The FC-31 prototype was hidden except when it was flying, and not much detail was available.
The prototype Land Rover was designed by a Jeep owner and built on a Jeep chassis.
Was I looking at the real me or just a reflection in the funhouse mirror of my prototype iPhone 6?
The 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt was produced in five different colors during its prototype tour, and the cars were later sold.
In 2009, the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) awarded Solar Roadways a contract to construct a prototype.
Historical Examples
Who is this ancient teacher or who is his prototype if he is an ideal being?
CyropaediaXenophon
Xenophon's own strategy in the Anabasis is probably the prototype.
CyropaediaXenophon
Prototype, when Agesilaus meditated the advance on Persia, just before his recall.
CyropaediaXenophon
Prototype, a procession to Eleusis or elsewhere: the Panathenaic, possibly.
CyropaediaXenophon
It has served as a prototype of most ancient and modern books.
prototype
- one of the first units manufactured of a product, which is tested so that the design can be changed if necessary before the product is manufactured commercially
- a person or thing that serves as an example of a type
- biology the ancestral or primitive form of a species or other group; an archetype
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for prototype
n.
c.1600, from French prototype (16c.) and directly from Medieval Latin prototypus "original, primitive," from Greek prototypon "a first or primitive form," noun use of neuter singular of prototypos "original, primitive," from protos "first" (see proto-) + typos "impression, mold, pattern" (see type (n.)). In English from 1590s as prototypon.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
prototype
(prō′tə-tīp′)- A primitive or ancestral form or species.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.