To fill in a form is to write your answers into the empty spaces. Name, address, and a box you cannot understand.
American English says fill out for exactly the same action, and both are correct. It splits round an object. There are two other senses: filling in for somebody means covering their job temporarily, and filling somebody in means telling them what they missed. A fill-in is the person doing the covering. And filling in a hole is the plain literal use the others come from.
1phrasefill inTo write information into the spaces on a form.
“Please fill in both sides of the form.”
2phrasetakeTo take over someone's duties temporarily.
“She agreed to fill in while he was away.”
Also accepted in games: fill out
Practised in Phrasal Verbs, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 23 of A Man Called Ove.
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