Definition of "intercalate"

intercalate

/ɪnˈtɜː.kəl.eɪt/

verb
third-person singular simple present intercalates, present participle intercalating, simple past and past participle intercalated
1. To insert an extra leap day into a calendar in order to maintain synchrony with natural phenomena.
  Quotations
  '[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.
  1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson, chapter 2, in Essays: Second Series
  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.
  1922, Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization‎, page 172
2. To insert an extra month into a calendar for the same purpose. The Hebrew calendar has such a month.
3. (molecular biology) 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.)
  Quotations
  ... 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, ...
  1828, The British Critic, Quarterly Theological Review, and Ecclesiastical Record, page 56
  Sometimes f or s is intercalated to lighten the pronunciation : kommen, Kunft ; können, Kunst ; […]
  1894, William Winston Valentine, Phonology and morphology, page 361
  -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.
  1969, Romance Philology, volume 23, page 298
  ... 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.
  1971, Moses Gaster, Studies and Texts in Folklore, Magic, Mediaeval Romance, Hebrew Apocrypha, and Samaritan Archaeology, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., page 455
  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, […]
  2010, John Wesley Tunnell, Encyclopedia of Texas Seashells: Identification, Ecology, Distribution, and History, Texas A&M University Press, page 111