interpolate

UK/ɪnˈtɜː.pəˌleɪt/US/ɪnˈtɝ.pəˌleɪt/

verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Other forms: interpolated, interpolates, interpolating

To interpolate is to work out a value that falls between two known ones. Interpolate the readings, an interpolated value, interpolate between them.

It is safe within the range measured and treacherous outside it, which is where extrapolation begins and most bad predictions come from. In textual scholarship an interpolated passage is one inserted later by another hand.

Definitions of interpolate

1verbinterpolateTo work out a value that falls between two known ones.C2
“The scientist interpolated the missing temperature from the readings taken at noon and at two.”

interpolate is an estimating.

Where it comes from

Latin interpolare means to touch up or refurbish, from inter plus polire, to polish.

Proto-Indo-European
*pel- (beat)
Latin
interpolātus
English, today
interpolate

From Latin interpolātus, perfect passive participle of interpolō, see -ate. Compare French interpoler.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Academic English

Practise this word

interpolate in the wild

A few data points from the original function can be interpolated to produce a simpler function which is still fairly close to the original.
Interpolation
Sparse grids are numerical techniques to represent, integrate or interpolate high dimensional functions.
Sparse grid
To solve this problem, trilinear filtering interpolates between the results of bilinear filtering on the two mipmaps nearest to the detail required for the polygon at the pixel.
Trilinear filtering
Agencies may interpolate between their timepoints, but this may not reflect a realistic expectation of when a vehicle should arrive, and the GTFS specification cautions against this practice.
Timing point
Other sensors detect only one color at each site and interpolate to produce a full-color image.
Sigma SD9

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the interpolātus family

extrapolate

interpolate — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

← Vocabulary