1 a round piece of metal or plastic used instead of money to operate some machines or as a form of payment:
a parking token
2 (BrE) a piece of paper that you pay for and that sb can exchange for sth in a shop/store:
a ｣20 book / record / gift token -< VOUCHER
3 a piece of paper that you can collect when you buy a particular product and then exchange for sth:
Collect six tokens for a free T-shirt.
4 something that is a symbol of a feeling, a fact, an event, etc:
Please accept this small gift as a token of our gratitude.
IDIOMS
by the same token for the same reasons:
The penalty for failure will be high. But, by the same token, the rewards for success will be great.
adjective [onlybeforenoun]
1 involving very little effort or feeling and intended only as a way of showing other people that you think sb/sth is important, when really you are not sincere:
The government has only made a token gesture towards helping the unemployed. * There was one token woman on the committee (= a woman who is included in the group to make it look as if women are always included, although that is not true). * When he suggested going into business on their own, she put up only a token resistance.
2 done as a symbol to show that you are serious about sth and will keep a promise or an agreement or do more later:
The government agreed to send a small token force to the area. * a one-day token strike
3 (of a small amount of money) that you pay or charge sb only as a symbol, because a payment is expected:
We charge only a token fee for use of the facilities.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for token is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is token a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, token is tagged as noun.
Does token appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — token appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
