High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In philosophy and knowledge representation, the type-token distinction is a distinction that separates an abstract concept from the objects which are particular instances of the concept. For example, the particular bicycle in your garage is a token of the type of thing known as "The bicycle." Whereas, the bicycle in your garage is in a particular place at a particular time, that is not true of "the bicycle" as used in the sentence: "The bicycle has become more popular recently." In logic, the distinction is used to clarify the meaning of symbols of formal languages.