Prototype

How to spell prototype

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prototype

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prototype mean?

1. nounAn early working model of a product or design, built to test and refine the concept before full production.
2. verbTo build or develop an early working model of something in order to test it.

Prototype in a sentence

• noun

  The engineers built a working prototype before approving the final design.

• verb

  The studio likes to prototype new features before committing to them.

• noun

  The startup demonstrated its prototype to potential investors last week.

• verb

  Developers often prototype an app quickly to gather user feedback.

Where does prototype come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word reaches back to the Greek prototypon, a noun meaning 'an original' or 'a first form', which combined protos 'first' with typos 'a model, mould, or impression made by striking'. The Greek typos itself came from the verb tuptein, 'to strike or beat', so a typos was literally the mark left by a blow, and from there it grew to mean any pattern from which copies are made. The compound passed into Late Latin as prototypon and then into French as prototype before entering English in the early 1600s, first in the sense of an original thing of which later examples are imitations. Over time it narrowed toward the modern engineering meaning: a first working model built to test a design. The proto- element is the same one that opens 'prototype', 'protocol', and 'protozoa', which is a useful anchor for remembering that the word starts proto- and never 'photo-'.

How the word is built

• proto- (first, earliest)
• -type (from Greek typos: model, impression, pattern)