a thing serving as a visible or tangible representation of a fact, quality, feeling, etc.

I wanted to offer you a small token of my appreciation

mistletoe was cut from an oak tree as a token of good fortune

a voucher that can be exchanged for goods or services, typically one given as a gift or forming part of a promotional offer

a record token

a member of a minority group included in an otherwise homogeneous set of people in order to give the appearance of diversity

the next black actor or actress selected won't know if it's because of their ability and performance or if they're just a token

an individual occurrence of a linguistic unit in speech or writing

a sequence of bits passed continuously between nodes in a fixed order and enabling a node to transmit information

done for the sake of appearances or as a symbolic gesture

cases like these often bring just token fines from magistrates