prototype

noun

1. An original form or object which is a basis for other forms or objects (particularly manufactured items), or for its generalizations and models.

   “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, […]”

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

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

   “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.”

   “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.”

3. A declaration of a function that specifies the name, return type, and parameters, but none of the body or actual code.
4. An instance of a category or a concept that combines its most representative attributes.

   “A robin is a prototype of a bird; a penguin is not.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

5. 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.

verb

1. (transitive)To create a prototype of.

   “In short, he has purposely perverted the whole case from beginning to end, and distorted it in such a manner, as not to be prototyped except by his own mind; […]”

   “[Y]ou may form acquaintance with the Wye before it sees the light, by penetrating that interesting cavern, Poole's Hole, as I have several times before. It is a wondrous place, and worthy of a far more dignified name; a sort of crypt in Nature's vast cathedral; an assemblage of all grotesque, fantastic and beautiful mineral formations, in a fretted vault not made by man, yet mimicking or prototyping all his art.”

   “[W]hatsoe'er the poet sings, / Of prototyped in nature or in man, / Moves deeply, though it touch not wrath of kings / Or frantic battle-van.”

   “The following themes will arise repeatedly in this book: / • the use of symbolic computation to prototype the behaviour of models.”

   “The BBC wanted a computer to go with their television series and started to look for candidate systems. […] Several companies competed for the contract, and the Proton project was an ideal candidate. The only problem was the Proton didn't actually exist. It was only in the design stage; it wasn't prototyped. Acorn had little time, only 4 days, and spent those 4 days working night and day, prototyping the design, and getting the Proton ready to show to the BBC. […] The BBC Micro was born.”

2. (rare, transitive)To imitate or emulate.