intercalate

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
13
Words With Friends
16
Letters
11
Pronunciation
/ɪnˈtɜː.kəl.eɪt/
See all 3 pronunciations
/ɪnˈtɜː.kəl.eɪt/ · /ˌɪn.tə.kəˈleɪt/ · /ɪnˈtɝ.kəˌleɪt/

Definition of intercalate

6 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. To insert an extra leap day into a calendar in order to maintain synchrony with natural phenomena.
    “'[T]is wonderful where or when we ever got anything of this which we call wisdom, poetry, virtue. We never got it on any dated calendar day. Some heavenly days must have been intercalated somewhere.”
    “At some unknown period, the five days, known to the present time by the names of the five Gathic hymns of Zarathushtra, were intercalated at the end of the twelfth month, to complete the three hundred and sixty-five days of the solar year.”
See all 6 definitions

verb

  1. To insert an extra leap day into a calendar in order to maintain synchrony with natural phenomena.
    “'[T]is wonderful where or when we ever got anything of this which we call wisdom, poetry, virtue. We never got it on any dated calendar day. Some heavenly days must have been intercalated somewhere.”
    “At some unknown period, the five days, known to the present time by the names of the five Gathic hymns of Zarathushtra, were intercalated at the end of the twelfth month, to complete the three hundred and sixty-five days of the solar year.”
  2. To insert an extra month into a calendar for the same purpose, such as for the Hebrew calendar.
    “The Sages once overheard three shepherds discussing what weather is characteristic of Adar, and if that weather does not occur, it is not really Adar. As a result, the Sages intercalated the year and added Adar II.”
  3. To insert a substance between two or more molecules, bases, cells, or tissues.
  4. To insert anything somewhere (especially between other things), such as an affix into a word. (Compare interpolate.)
    “... the personal pronouns which form the terminations of the verb, or by an intercalated suffix, the nature and relation of its objects and its subject , and to distinguish whether the object be animate or inanimate, ...”
    “Sometimes f or s is intercalated to lighten the pronunciation : kommen, Kunft ; können, Kunst ; […]”
    “-erole ← -er- (< -ÅR) + -ole ( < -EOLU): maierole. A lengthened var. of -ole, this suffix appears in the late Middle Ages, formed through “false division”, namely the secondary rapprochement of, say, bannerole (banniere + -ole) or casserole with ban- or cass-. Is the -er- […] intercalated for rhythmic of differentiatory purposes? This "interfix" conveys no semantic message: It simply serves as an occasionally handy grammatical tool.”
    “... they were interpreted and modified in the light of Pythagorean harmonies and other mystical manipulations of vowels and letters. The intercalated letters are intended to be the first ten letters of the alphabet as in line 602ff.”
    “Description: Color translucent white; shell cap shaped; sculpture of approximately 40 radiating ribs with intercalated threads alternating between ribs; concentric ribs intersecting radial ribs; anal fasciole relatively short, […]”

noun

  1. (attributive, often)An atom or molecule, or a substance, that enters between the layers of the crystal lattice of another substance, especially that of graphite.
    “Entry of intercalate molecules from the edge of basal planes of crystallites must be kept sufficiently slow to mitigate mechanical strains..before the intercalate has spread uniformly through any layer.”
  2. A compound formed by foreign atoms or molecules entering between the layers of a crystal lattice, especially that of graphite.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

The verb is first attested in 1614, the noun in 1964; borrowed from Latin intercalātus, perfect passive participle of intercalō (“to proclaim that a day, an event, etc. has been intercalated; to insert”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix)), from inter- (“between, among”) + calō (“to call; to proclaim”).

Words you can make from intercalate

200+ playable · top: TETRACAINE (12 pts)

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9-letter words

10 words

8-letter words

33 words

7-letter words

83 words

6-letter words

73 words

Hooks

2 extensions · 2 back

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