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duck typing

duck typing noun: a style of dynamic typing in which an object's current set of methods and properties determines the valid semantics, rather than its inheritance from a particular class or implementation of a specific interface.

Noun

duck typing (uncountable)

  1. A style of dynamic typing in which an object's current set of methods and properties determines the valid semantics, rather than its inheritance from a particular class or implementation of a specific interface.
    • Ruby proponents call this duck typing::^([sic]) if the variable responds to a message that asks it to quack like a duck and it quacks, it must be a duck. This is clearly different from the way that Java (and other strongly typed languages) work, […]2006, Neal Ford, Scott Davis, No Fluff, Just Stuff Anthology: The 2006 Edition, page 16

Origin of duck typing

From the so-called duck test: “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

Questions about duck typing

What does duck typing mean?
Duck typing means a style of dynamic typing in which an object's current set of methods and properties determines the valid semantics, rather than its inheritance from a particular class or implementation of a specific interface.
What part of speech is duck typing?
Duck typing is a noun.

Words near duck typing in the dictionary

  1. duck tapes
  2. duck test
  3. duck tests
  4. duck tour
  5. duck tours
  6. duck typing
  7. duck walk
  8. duck walked
  9. duck walking
  10. duck walks
  11. duck's arse

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: duck typing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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