medal; award medal
A medal or similar award given as a prize; more formal and written-sounding than the loanword メダル.
大会の入賞者に賞牌が贈られた。
Medals were presented to the prizewinners in the tournament.
The winner was awarded a gold medal.
The winner is awarded a medal and a certificate.
He won a silver medal at the Olympics.
勲章 refers to an official decoration or order conferred by the state for merit, whereas 賞牌 is the broader formal term for any award medal.
賞状 is a paper certificate of award, not a physical medal like 賞牌, though the two are often given together.
counter for thin, flat objects; sheet; plate; coin · serving of soba; portion of gyōza · sumo rank position; wrestler at a given rank · field; rice paddy plot · palanquin bearer
A Sino-Japanese compound: 賞 means 'prize' or 'award,' and 牌 refers to a tablet, plaque, or medal-like object. The spelling is semantically transparent, but no specific historical derivation is implied.