first-class object English

Meaning first-class object meaning

What does first-class object mean?

first-class object noun

— (programming, languages) An entity that can be constructed at run-time, passed as a parameter, returned from a function, or assigned into a variable.

— (programming, languages) An entity that can pass a value as a parameter, can be returned from a subroutine, and can be assigned into a variable. (This is the definition according to Raphael Finkel, who uses the terms of second- and third-class objects.)