interpolation

plural interpolations

1. countableuncountableentertainmentAn abrupt change in elements, with continuation of the first idea.
2. countableuncountablemathematicsThe process of estimating the value of a function at a point from its values at nearby points.
3. countableuncountablecomputingThe process of interpolating: including and processing externally-fetched data in a document or program.

   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.

   2000, Wall, Christiansen, Jon Orwant, Programming Perl, 3rd edition, page 992

   Synonyms: transclusion

4. countableuncountablecontent analysiscommunicationsThat 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.

   2 more examples

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

   1830, Thomas De Quincey, Life of Richard Bentley

   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.

   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

5. countableeuphemisticuncountableentertainmentThe use of a melody from a previously recorded song, but recreated rather than sampled from that recording.

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

   2015, Loren Kajikawa, Sounding Race in Rap Songs, page 147