Dictionary

fill-in en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈfɪlˌɪn/

Etymology

From the verb phrase fill in.

Meanings

1. A temporary replacement for another, especially at a job.
   • I was a fill-in. What that meant was you rode with each salesperson to learn his route, and then you could actually run his route when he was off or on vacation. 2013 -, Eugene J. McArdle, Snapshots in Time: As I Recall It, page 10:
   • He went in to the Calsag bar to wrangle two fill-ins for the Goldenhoys as ordered. 2012, Barry F. Schnell, The Charmurz, page 205:
2. A substitution.
   • All our language is loose: whatever one means to say, all words are fill-ins for other words - as any cursory glance at a dictionary reveals. 2004, Anthony Elliott, Social Theory Since Freud: Traversing Social Imaginaries, page 72:
3. An intermediate result that must be stored temporarily during the course of a sparse matrix computation.
   • When a fill-in, aᵢⱼ⁽ˢ⁾ is created in the course of the computation, it may be necessary to make copies of the contents of certain parts of the ALU and CNLU at the ends of these arrays. 1991, Zahari Zlatev -, Computational Methods for General Sparse Matrices, page 19:
   • In practice they are very sparse and generate few fill-ins in the remaining columns. 2002, István Maros, Computational Techniques of the Simplex Method, page 131:
   • Suppose that there were no fill-ins added in the course of factorization. (This is unrealistic, but we have developed techniques to minimize the number of fill-ins and in practice the number of fill-ins may be relatively small.) 2009, Ross Baldick, Applied Optimization, page 248:
4. A question or puzzle in which one is expected to fill in a missing part of something.
   • I would pick three or four activities each day from a list of: oral reading, silent reading, filmstrips on the text book subject, short quizzes, chapter tests, semester exams, quarter exams, review sheets, "find the word" puzzles, research papers with library visits, lectures, debates (about four times a year), phonograph records from the library downtown for the music of the time era we were studying, movies, field trips, spelling lists, match the date with the name lists, timelines, map fill-ins, etc. 2007, Gene A. Grant, The Adventures of Reverend Rocket, page 463:
   • The main interaction styles supported by Web systems are direct manipulation, menus and form fill-ins. 2003, Vladimir Geroimenko, Chaomei Chen, Visualizing the Semantic Web:
   • This is truly a word fill-in book like no other. 2018, Jaja Jaja Books, Classic Word Fill-In:
   • This part tests your writing skills in Spanish, and it consists of three different exercises: paragraph fill-ins, discrete sentence fill-ins, and an essay. 2005, Gisela Bencomo, CliffsAP Spanish Language, page 117:
5. A musical embellishment (usually percussion) that is added to connect musical phrases.
   • The following abbreviations are used for all drum solos and fill-ins. 2005, Ted Reed -, Drum Solos and Fill-Ins for the Progressive Drummer:
   • Fill-ins usually happen at the end of a four or eight-measure musical phrase. 2011, Rob Leytham, Rock Drumming & Soloing Methods, page 9:
6. Something added to fill a gap.
   • Bess never understood why the corners of the foundation had to have these rounded fill-ins; they weren't load bearing and were plastered over. 2012, Janet Taylor, The Wise Woman: A Perry County Tale, page 129:
   • Originally, we'd planned a Basie-type thing, using lots of open rhythm, only without any piano for fill-ins. 2004, Lawrence McClellan, The Later Swing Era, 1942 to 1955, page 50:
   • Roadways became patchworks of asphalt fill-ins and forgotten cement. 2014, Marcus J. Guillory -, Red Now and Laters, page 8:
   • As we do not like knowledge gaps, we construct “fill-ins” to enable a coherent sense of the self and an awareness of others. 2014, Gerhard Besier, Neither Good Nor Bad: Why Human Beings Behave How They Do:
   • There were all kinds of different tips with varying widths of sprays—fat and skinny ones with special names. Fats were for fill-ins, and skinny tips usually for the outlines, unless you used a fat cap for a tag and attempted to “flare” the ends of your letters. 2007, Kelly Parra, Graffiti Girl, page 135:
   • These bits were fill-ins between what had to be said to carry on life and work and they were constant. 2006, David N. Campbell, Our Lost Language - How We Once Talked, page 6:
   • With too many fill-ins the statistical results become dubious. 1992, Terry J. Reedy, Chandra L. Reedy, Principles of Experimental Design for Art Conservation Research:
7. Something added to increase the size of something; padding or filler.
   • When making these comparisons, we can clearly see many fill-ins throughout the stories. Most of them are incidental and have little bearing on the story; others are remarkably important. 2011, William R. Hugo, Studying the Life of Saint Francis of Assisi:
   • As creators produced more material than might be published in a given month, a back stock of material would be accumulated, much of which could be used as fill-ins in cases when publishing schedules might run afoul. 2015, Bart Beaty, Twelve-Cent Archie, page 167:
   • Thus a film like René Laloux's Fantastic Planet (1973) clearly involves human or humanlike characters—yet the mode of presentation eschews historical fill-ins, and many of the events are hallucinatory rather than realistic. 2011, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, page 258:
   • There was, at that time, a small film producing complex known as Ben Blake Studios where a variety of trailers, commercials, fill-ins, and (yes) screen tests were shot. 2001, Bud Fine, Afterthoughts, page 29:
   • It is not a gossipy yarn; nor is it a dry, monotonous account, full of such customary 'fill-ins' as 'romantic moonlight casting murky shadows down a long, winding country road'. 2002, David Crystal, The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language:
8. A product category that is used to complete a range or variety of a product line.
   • Since consumer buying behaviour to obtain staples is different from fill-ins, retailers strategy will also differ. 2009, K. V. S. Madaan, Fundamentals of Retailing, page 145:
   • Variety enhancers may have medium to high margins, while the fill-ins will have higher profit margins due to the longer time these items may need to move off the shelf in a retail store. 2011, Chiplunkar, Product Category Management, page 104:

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