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Interpolation

1. The act of introducing or inserting anything, especially that which is spurious or foreign.

2. That which is introduced or inserted, especially something foreign or spurious. Bentley wrote a letter . . . . Upon the scriptural glosses in our present copies of Hesychius, which he considered interpolations from a later hand. (De Quincey)

3. (Science: mathematics) The method or operation of finding from a few given terms of a series, as of numbers or observations, other intermediate terms in conformity with the law of the series.

Origin: L. Interpolatio an alteration made here and there: cf. F. Interpolation.