different between character vs token

English

Etymology

From Middle English caracter, from Old French caractere, from Latin character, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kharakt?r, “type, nature, character”), from ??????? (kharáss?, “I engrave”). Doublet of charakter.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k??(?)kt?/, /?kæ?(?)kt?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kæ??kt?/
• Hyphenation: char?ac?ter

Noun

character (countable and uncountable, plural characters)

1. (countable) A being involved in the action of a story.
2. (countable) A distinguishing feature; characteristic; trait; phene.

3. (uncountable, countable) A complex of traits marking a person, group, breed, or type.

   • A man of […] thoroughly subservient character

4. (uncountable) Strength of mind; resolution; independence; individuality; moral strength.

5. (countable) A unique or extraordinary individual; a person characterized by peculiar or notable traits, especially charisma.

6. (countable) A written or printed symbol, or letter.
   • 1669, William Holder, Elements of Speech

     It were much to be wished that there were throughout the world but one sort of character for each letter to express it to the eye.

7. (countable, dated) Style of writing or printing; handwriting; the particular form of letters used by a person or people.
8. (countable, dated) A secret cipher; a way of writing in code.
9. (countable, computing) One of the basic elements making up a text file or string: a code representing a printing character or a control character.
10. (countable, informal) A person or individual, especially one who is unknown or raises suspicions.

11. (countable, mathematics) A complex number representing an element of a finite Abelian group.
12. (countable) Quality, position, rank, or capacity; quality or conduct with respect to a certain office or duty.

13. (countable, dated) The estimate, individual or general, put upon a person or thing; reputation.

    • This subterraneous passage is much mended since Seneca gave so bad a character of it.

14. (countable, dated) A reference given to a servant, attesting to their behaviour, competence, etc.
15. (countable, obsolete) Personal appearance.

Usage notes

Character is sometimes used interchangeably with reputation, but the two words have different meanings; character describes the distinctive qualities of an individual or group while reputation describes the opinions held by others regarding an individual or group. Character is internal and authentic, while reputation is external and perceived.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Pages starting with “character”.

Translations

Verb

character (third-person singular simple present characters, present participle charactering, simple past and past participle charactered)

1. (obsolete) To write (using characters); to describe.

See also

• codepoint
• font
• glyph
• letter
• symbol
• rune
• pictogram

Latin

Etymology

From the Ancient Greek ???????? (kharakt?r).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /k?a?rak.ter/, [k?ä??äkt??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ka?rak.ter/, [k????kt??r]

Noun

character m (genitive charact?ris); third declension

1. branding iron
2. brand (made by a branding iron)
3. characteristic, mark, character, style

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Descendants

• Hungarian: karakter
• Galician: caritel; ? carácter
• Irish: carachtar
• Italian: carattere
• Old French: caractere
  • ? English: character
  • French: caractère
• Polish: charakter
  • ? Russian: ????????? (xarákter)
• Portuguese: caractere, carácter
• Sicilian: caràttiri
• Spanish: carácter

References

• character in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• character in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• character in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700?^[1], pre-publication website, 2005-2016

Portuguese

Noun

character m (plural characteres)

1. Obsolete spelling of caráter (used in Portugal until September 1911 and died out in Brazil during the 1920s).

English

Etymology

From Middle English token, taken, from Old English t?cn (“sign”), from Proto-West Germanic *taikn, from Proto-Germanic *taikn?, from Proto-Indo-European *dey?- (“to show, instruct, teach”) with Germanic *k rather than *h by Kluge's law.

The verb is from Middle English toknen, from Old English t?cnian. Cognate with German Zeichen.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?t??k?n/
• (US) enPR: t?k??n IPA^(key): /?to?k?n/
• Rhymes: -??k?n

Noun

token (plural tokens)

1. Something serving as an expression of something else.

   Synonyms: sign, symbol

2. A keepsake.

   Synonyms: memento, souvenir

3. A piece of stamped metal or plastic, etc., used as a substitute for money; a voucher that can be exchanged for goods or services.

4. 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.

5. A minor attempt for appearance's sake, or to minimally comply with a requirement.

   His apology was no more than a token.

   1. A member of a group of people that is included within a larger group to comply with a legal or social requirement.
6. (obsolete, sometimes figuratively) Evidence, proof; a confirming detail; physical trace, mark, footprint.
7. Support for a belief; grounds for an opinion.

   Synonyms: reason, reasoning

8. An extraordinary event serving as evidence of supernatural power.

   Synonym: miracle

9. An object or disclosure to attest or authenticate the bearer or an instruction.

   Synonym: password

10. A seal guaranteeing the quality of an item.
11. Something given or shown as a symbol or guarantee of authority or right; a sign of authenticity, of power, good faith.
    • ca. 1605, William Shakespeare, Measure fir Measure, Act IV, sc. 3:

      Say, by this token, I desire his company.

    • 1611, King James Version, Exodus 3:12:

      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.

12. A tally.
13. (philosophy) A particular thing to which a concept applies.
14. (computing) An atomic piece of data, such as a word, for which a meaning may be inferred during parsing.

    Synonym: symbol

    Coordinate term: placeholder

    • 2004, Randall Hyde, Write Great Code: Understanding the Machine, page 68

      For each lexeme, the scanner creates a small data package known as a token and passes this data package on to the parser.

15. (computing) 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.
16. (computing) A meaningless placeholder used as a substitute for sensitive data.
17. (grammar) A lexeme; a basic, grammatically indivisible unit of a language such as a keyword, operator or identifier.
18. (corpus linguistics) A single example of a certain word in a text or corpus.
    • 2007, Khurshid Ahmad, "Artificial Ontologies and Real Thoughts: Populating the Semantic Web?", Roberto Basili, Maria Teresa Pazienza (eds.), AI*IA 2007: Artificial Intelligence and Human-Oriented Computing, Springer-Verlag, page 10.

    Antonym: type

19. (medicine) A characteristic sign of a disease or of a bodily disorder, a symptom; a sign of a bodily condition, recovery, or health.
20. (medicine, obsolete) A livid spot upon the body, indicating, or supposed to indicate, the approach of death.

    • Like the fearful tokens of the plague, Are mere fore-runners of their ends.

21. (printing) 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.
22. (mining) A bit of leather having a peculiar mark designating a particular miner. Each hewer sends one of these with each corf or tub he has hewn.
    • 1864 August 6, "Miners and Their Grievances", The Spectator, vol. 37, No. 1884, page 902.

    • 1873, Richard Fynes, The Miners of Northumberland and Durham, page 110.

    • 1877, "Northern Industries", The Primitive Methodist Magazine, page 172.

23. (mining) A thin bed of coal indicating the existence of a thicker seam at no great distance.
24. (rail transport) A physical object used for exchange between drivers and signalmen on single track lines.
25. (weaving) In a loom, a colored signal to show the weaver which shuttle to use.
26. (Church of Scotland) A piece of metal given beforehand to each person in the congregation who is permitted to partake of the Lord's Supper.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• (philosophy): particular, universal, type

References

Adjective

token (comparative more token, superlative most token)

1. Done as an indication or a pledge.
2. Perfunctory or merely symbolic; done or existing for appearance's sake, or to minimally comply with a requirement.

   He made a token tap on the brake pedal at the stop sign.

   • 1927, Arthur Robert Burns, Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times, page 393

     If the as had been reduced to a token in 240 BC, it was now a little more token than before.

   • 2000, Cheris Kramarae, Dale Spender, Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, Page 176

     There are still many churches where the participation of women is token.

3. (of people) Included in minimal numbers in order to create an impression or illusion of diversity, especially ethnic or gender diversity.

   He was hired as the company's token black person.

   The television show was primarily directed toward a black audience, but it did have a few token white people as performers.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

token (third-person singular simple present tokens, present participle tokening, simple past and past participle tokened)

1. To betoken, indicate, portend, designate, denote
   • 1398, in Hans Kurath & Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press 1962, [[Special:BookSources/978-0-472-01044-8|?ISBN]], page 1242:

     dorr??, d?r? adj. & n. […] Golden or reddish-yellow […] (a. 1398) *Trev. Barth. 59b/a: ?elou? colour [of urine] […] tokeneþ febleness of hete […] dorrey & citrine & li?t red tokeneþ mene.

   • 1928, Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, Penguin 2010, p. 149:

     The instinct revolted against the inevitable punishment to come, already tokened by those big holes now met in walls and crossings.
2. To betroth
3. (philosophy) To symbolize, instantiate

Derived terms

• betoken
• foretoken

References

• Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

Dutch

Etymology

From English token.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?to?k?(n)/

Noun

token m or n (plural tokens, diminutive tokentje n)

1. (computing) token, an atomic piece of data.

Usage notes

There is no general agreement about the gender. In the south, people tend to use neuter, whereas in the north, masculine is preferred.

Anagrams

• knoet

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English t?cn, from Proto-Germanic *taikn? (“sign, token, symbol”).

Noun

token (plural tokenes)

1. token (a physical object representing an action, concept, etc.)
2. omen, portent
3. token (support for a belief)
4. prearranged signal
5. token (momento, keepsake)
6. A flag, banner, standard associated with a person or event.
7. model, example
8. guarantee
9. (astronomy) celestial body
10. (astrology) astrological sign

Alternative forms

• tokene, tokin, tokine, tokon, tokne, tocne, toquen
• taken, takein, takin, takine (Northern)
• taken, takein, takin, takine, tacn, tacne, tacnæ, tockne (early)

Descendants

• English: token
• Scots: taiken

References

• “t?ken, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Etymology 2

Noun

token (uncountable)

1. (before g-) Alternative form of tukinge

Etymology 3

Verb

token

1. simple past plural of taken

Alternative forms

• toke, tok, tokon, teken, takede
• tocken (early southwest Midlands)
• tocan (early)

Verb

token

1. Alternative form of taken: past participle of taken

Swedish

Noun

token

1. definite singular of tok

Anagrams

• keton