type
Pluraltypes
Pluraltypes
- 1A category whose members are grouped together because they share certain characteristics or qualities.
Investigators identified the rock as a rare type formed under intense pressure.
Several types of insects thrive in the damp forest.
UsageSay this type of book or these types of books.
- 2To write text or enter commands by pressing the keys of a keyboard, typewriter, or similar device.
You can type faster once you learn where the keys are.
He typed the entire report in a single afternoon.
UsageType text into a box or on a keyboard. Type up notes means make a neat typed copy.
- 3The kind of person one finds most appealing, especially romantically; one's preferred sort of partner.
Brooding intellectuals had always been her type.
He insisted that loud, outgoing people were not his type.
UsageUsually with a possessive: not my type, just her type.
- 4An individual regarded as a typical or representative example of a particular class, profession, or environment.
The detective was a familiar type: weary, cynical, and quietly brilliant.
Critics dismissed the character as a stock type rather than a real person.
UsageOften plural after a word naming or describing the group: Navy types, arty types.
Similarcharacter, sort, breed, stereotype
Note
Here the word usually travels in the plural, with a noun in front naming the milieu: Navy types in Pat Conroy's The Great Santini (1976), Social Register types in Waldo Salt's Midnight Cowboy (1969). The pattern sorts people by background at a glance.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- The phrase “Navy types” occurs in Pat Conroy's The Great Santini. en.wiktionary.org
- Pat Conroy wrote The Great Santini, first published in 1976. patconroy.com
- The phrase “Social Register types” occurs in Midnight Cowboy. en.wiktionary.org
- Waldo Salt wrote the screenplay for Midnight Cowboy. en.wikipedia.org
- The film Midnight Cowboy was released in 1969. en.wikipedia.org
- 5In computing and logic, a category assigned to values, variables, or terms that determines which operations or uses are allowed for them.
The compiler rejected the code because the function returned the wrong type.
Choosing the right type for a variable can reduce memory usage.
Note
Programmers and logicians share this word. A type constrains a variable or value and decides what may go where. A compiler that rejects code returning the wrong type is enforcing exactly that rule. Logic uses the same notion when it divides the objects a theory talks about into kinds.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- A type constrains how a variable or value can be used. cs.emory.edu
- A compiler can reject a function whose returned value does not match its required type. doc.rust-lang.org
- Types classify the objects or terms used in a logical theory. lean-lang.org
Less common meanings
- 6One of the categories into which blood is classified according to its antigens, such as A, B, AB, or O.
Doctors matched the donor's type with the patient's before the transfusion.
Certain blood types are far rarer than others in some populations.
UsageOften blood type, or type + letter: type O, type AB.
Similargroup
Note
The groups rest on inherited antigens, as in the ABO and Rh systems. The same word serves as a verb for testing the group, so a patient's type is what the lab finds when it types the sample.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Blood groups are inherited. redcrossblood.org
- The ABO and Rh systems classify blood using antigens. blood.co.uk
- Blood typing tests a blood sample to determine the patient's blood group. medlineplus.gov
- 7To classify something by sorting it into types according to shared characteristics.
Health officials type the bacteria from each patient to trace an outbreak back to a single farm.
The lab typed the soil samples according to mineral content.
Similarclassify, categorize, sort, group, class
Note
The verb turns sorting into kinds into an action, and it applies to people as coolly as to soil samples. In Dana Stabenow's Fire and Ice (1998), a character has a group "typed and cross-matched with their potential for future crime." The line borrows the vocabulary of blood-typing to make judging strangers sound clinical.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Dana Stabenow wrote Fire and Ice, first published in 1998. en.wikipedia.org
- The novel describes a character classifying a group using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
- Typing and cross-matching are blood-transfusion terminology; the clinical comparison is a supported interpretation. profedu.blood.ca
- 8Printed text as it appears on the page, or lettering that imitates the look of printed characters.
The contract's small type was nearly impossible to read.
The headline was set in large, bold type across the front page.
UsageCommon phrases: bold type, small type, set in large type.
Note
The word moves from the metal to its impression on the page, and it stays uncountable: bold type, small type, large type. Headlines are "set in" type, a phrase carried over from the printing pieces themselves. The sense also stretches to lettering that only imitates print, so type can appear where no press was ever involved.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The printed-text meaning is an extension of the meaning referring to physical printing characters. en.wiktionary.org
- The expression about setting text in type carries over the practice of arranging physical printing pieces. gutenberg.org
- 9Small blocks of metal or wood, each bearing a raised letter or character, used in printing; also a set of these in one font or size.
The compositor locked the type into the frame before inking the press.
Worn type produced faint, uneven letters on the cheap paper.
Note
The printer's sense keeps the word's oldest image. Greek túpos, a mark or impression, comes from túptō, "I strike," and a piece of type makes an impression too: a block whose inked letter is pressed against paper.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Greek túpos means a mark or impression and derives from túptō, meaning to strike or beat. en.wiktionary.org
- 10To determine which blood group a person or sample belongs to through laboratory testing.
Technicians type donated blood to ensure safe matches for recipients.
Her blood was typed before the surgery began.
UsageTakes the person or sample, with for + purpose: type a patient for a transfusion. Often passive: was typed.
- 11A person or thing that embodies or symbolizes a quality or class; a perfect example or emblem of it.
In the play, she stands as the type of selfless devotion.
Critics called the character a perfect type of the ambitious politician.
UsageOften with the or perfect: the type of courage, a perfect type of the hero.
Similarepitome, embodiment, archetype, exemplar, paragon
Note
The word reaches past the merely typical person: someone embodies a quality so fully that they stand for it. The construction is the type of plus an abstract noun, as in Mary Rose Godfrey's Loyal (1872): "he was the type of low ruffianism."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Mary Rose Godfrey wrote Loyal. books.google.com
- Loyal contains the quoted words “he was the type of low ruffianism.” en.wiktionary.org
- 12A person or event that prefigures or foreshadows a later one, commonly an Old Testament figure linked to Christian times.
Early theologians treated Moses as a type of the coming deliverer.
The flood was interpreted as a type foreshadowing later salvation.
Similarforerunner, precursor, prefiguration, foreshadowing
Oppositeantitype
Note
Theology's sense rests on reading history as a pattern. An earlier person or event is taken to point ahead to a later one, most often an Old Testament figure read against Christian times. The practice of finding such correspondences is called typology. The verb meaning "to prefigure" does the same work: one says that Adam types Christ, or calls Moses a type of the deliverer to come.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Christian interpretation treats earlier Old Testament people and events as prefiguring later Christian realities; this is called typology. en.wikipedia.org
- The verb type can mean to prefigure. en.wiktionary.org
- Adam is interpreted as prefiguring Christ. bible.org
- Moses is interpreted as a type of the later deliverer, Christ. catholic.com
- 13A specimen or object selected as an objective anchor that ties a scientific name to a taxon, even when it is neither representative nor typical.
- 14The original object, scene, or idea that becomes the subject of a copy; especially the design on the face of a medal or coin.
- 15A distinct word form in a text or corpus, counted only once regardless of how many times it occurs, in contrast to a token.
- 16To furnish an expression or copy of something; to represent or typify it.
Let us type them now in our own lives.
1847, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess - 17To represent something beforehand by a type, model, or symbol; to prefigure.
- 18In chemistry, a simple compound treated as a model to which other compounds can conveniently be related and from which they can be derived, in fact or in theory.
- 19Very; extremely; used informally to intensify the word that follows.
I'm ngl you're type ugly too
2023, @chillimnotacop, Twitter
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Ancient Greek τύπος (túpos, "mark, impression, type"), which came from τύπτω (túptō, "I strike, beat"), was taken into Latin as typus. The Latin word then gave Middle English type, meaning "symbol, figure, emblem."