• 1 a thing serving to represent a fact, quality, feeling, etc.: a token of friendship.

  ■ archaic a badge or favour worn to indicate allegiance.

  ■ archaic a word or object conferring authority on or serving to authenticate the speaker or holder.

  ■ a device given to a train driver on a single-track railway as authority to proceed.

• 2 a voucher that can be exchanged for goods or services.

  ■ a metal or plastic disc used to operate a machine or in exchange for goods or services.

• 3 Linguistics an individual occurrence of a linguistic unit in speech or writing. Contrasted with type.

• 4 Computing a sequence of bits passed between nodes in a fixed order and enabling a node to transmit information.

■ chosen by way of tokenism to represent a particular group.