prototype

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
2. n. An original, full-scale, and usually working model of a new product or new version of an existing product.
3. n. An early, typical example.
4. n. Biology A form or species that serves as an original type or example.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A primitive form; an original or model after which anything is formed; the pattern of anything to be engraved, cast, etc.; an exemplar; an archetype; especially, in metrology, an original standard, to which others must conform, and which, though it may be imitated from something else, is not required to conform to anything else, but itself serves as the ultimate definition of a unit. Thus, the mètre des archives is a prototype, and so is the new international meter at Breteuil, although the latter is imitated from the former. But the mètre du conservatoire and the meters distributed by the International Bureau are not prototypes, since they have no authority except from the evidence that they conform to other measures.

Wiktionary

1. n. An original object or form which is a basis for other objects, forms, or for its models and generalizations
2. n. An early sample or model built to test a concept or process
3. n. An instance of a category or a concept that combines its most representative attributes, such as robin being a prototype of bird, unlike penguin.
4. v. To create a prototype of.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An original or model after which anything is copied; the pattern of anything to be engraved, or otherwise copied, cast, or the like; a primary form; exemplar; archetype.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a standard or typical example