From French interpolation, from Latin interpolatio. Morphologically interpolate +‎ -ion.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnˌtɜː.pəˈleɪʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɪnˌtɝ.pəˈleɪʃən/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɪnˌtɜː.pəˈleɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

interpolation (countable and uncountable, plural interpolations)

1. (music) An abrupt change in elements, with continuation of the first idea.
2. (mathematics, sciences) The process of estimating the value of a function at a point from its values at nearby points.
3. (computing) The process of interpolating: including and processing externally-fetched data in a document or program.
   • 2000, Wall, Christiansen, Jon Orwant, Programming Perl, 3rd edition, page 992:

     In Perl, variable interpolation happens in double-quoted strings and patterns, and list interpolation occurs when constructing the list of values to pass to a list operator or other such construct that takes a LIST.

4. (editing, content analysis) That which is introduced or inserted; in contexts of content analysis of centuries-old texts, especially something foreign or spurious.

   Today a widely established convention encloses all editorial interpolations in square brackets [like so] for clarity.

   • 1830, Thomas De Quincey, Life of Richard Bentley:

     Bentley wrote a letter […] upon the scriptural glosses in our present copies of Hesychius, which he considered interpolations from a later hand.

   • 1843, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The New Adam and Eve”, in Mosses from an Old Manse.[…], part II, New York, N.Y.: Wiley and Putnam, published 1846, →OCLC, page 1:

     We, who are born into the world's artificial system, can never adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and heart of man.

5. (music) The use of a melody from a previously recorded song, but recreated rather than sampled from that recording.
   • 2015, Loren Kajikawa, Sounding Race in Rap Songs, page 147:

     The melody itself is an interpolation of “The Streets of Cairo,” an Orientalist Tin Pan Alley song originally published in 1895.

• (including and processing externally-fetched data): transclusion

• interpolate
• interpolary

• interlopation

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.tɛʁ.pɔ.la.sjɔ̃/

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

interpolation f (plural interpolations)

1. interpolation

• “interpolation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012