fill-ins

Noun

fill-in (plural fill-ins)

1. A temporary replacement for another, especially at a job.
   • 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
4. A question or puzzle in which one is expected to fill in a missing part of something.
   • 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
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
6. Something added to fill a gap.
   • 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

See all 8 meanings of fill-in