Interpolators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. People who add passages, words or phrases into a document or manuscript ; programs or devices that estimate values lying between known data points
2. Those who insert altered or added material into a written work ; mechanisms or software that compute in-between values from surrounding data
3. Editors or scribes who slip new text into an existing work ; computational tools that fill gaps by estimating values between measured points

Etymology: "Interpolators" is the plural of "interpolator," a noun for a person who adds text to a document, often to change its meaning. The word is built from "interpolate," which is itself the source of the term, plus the suffix "-or," an ending that marks a person or thing that performs an action. The base verb "interpolate" comes from Latin "interpolare," meaning to furbish up or alter, and in English it originally carried the sense of inserting something new into an existing series or text. The "-or" ending attached to that verb gives a straightforward agent noun: one who interpolates. Because the base word has long been used for editing manuscripts, the noun naturally came to describe the people doing that work, especially when the additions were unauthorized.