first-class object

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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