diff --git a/bin/swiss-knife.php b/bin/swiss-knife.php
index f12534588..c1ba7951f 100755
--- a/bin/swiss-knife.php
+++ b/bin/swiss-knife.php
@@ -27,6 +27,19 @@
     }
 }
 
+// the released tool is downgraded to PHP 7.2, but the bundled nikic/php-parser
+// references PHP 7.4 token constants directly - define them to avoid fatal errors
+// (see https://github.com/easy-coding-standard/ecs/blob/main/bin/ecs.php for the same approach)
+if (! defined('T_FN')) {
+    define('T_FN', 5025);
+}
+if (! defined('T_COALESCE_EQUAL')) {
+    define('T_COALESCE_EQUAL', 5030);
+}
+if (! defined('T_BAD_CHARACTER')) {
+    define('T_BAD_CHARACTER', 5035);
+}
+
 $containerFactory = new ContainerFactory();
 $container = $containerFactory->create();