filler
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈfɪlə(ɹ)/
enpr: fĭlʹər
ipa: /ˈfɪlɚ/
rhymes: -ɪlə(ɹ)
Forms: form: fillers
Etymology: From fill + -er.
Senses: examples: text: They commonly have three, four, five, or six hewers or diggers, to four fillers, so as to keep the fillers always at work.
ref: 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC:
glosses: One who fills.
examples: text: I recommend this album in the face of the fact that five of the eleven songs are the purest filler, dull instrumentals with a harmonica rifling over an indifferent rhythm section. The rest is magnificent[…]
ref: 1977, Stereo Review, volume 38, page 70:
glosses: Something added to fill a space or add weight or size.
glosses: Any semisolid substance used to fill gaps, cracks or pores.
examples: text: A 50-year-old patient will come in, and suddenly, she’s super-skinny and needs filler, which she never needed before.
ref: 2023 January 24, Amy Synnott, quoting Dr. Frank, “Those Weight Loss Drugs May Do a Number on Your Face”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 24 Jan 2023:
qualifier: cosmetic surgery
glosses: A dermal filler, a substance injected beneath the skin to restore lost volume.
examples: text: The word "filler" is taboo in the excipient world.
ref: 2014 April, Ken Seufert, “The New Dawn of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Innovative Solutions for Unprecedented Challenges”, in American Pharmaceutical Review, 17(3):9:
glosses: A relatively inert ingredient added to modify physical characteristics; a bulking agent.
glosses: A short article in a newspaper or magazine.
glosses: A short piece of music or an announcement between radio or TV programmes.
examples: text: 'Tis a meer filler; to ſtop a vacancy in the Hexameter, and connect the Preface to the Work of Virgil.
ref: 1697, Virgil, “Dedication”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: As the years go by, speech reverts to childhood levels of disfluency, with more pauses, more errors, more repeated words, but even the peak years are not great: up to 8 percent of the average person’s word output consists of meaningless fillers and placeholders like um, uh and er.
ref: 2007 August 24, William Grimes, “Uh, Lead My Rips: No More Bloopers”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2013:
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Any spoken sound or word used to fill gaps in speech; filled pause.
glosses: Cut tobacco used to make up the body of a cigar.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: In COBOL, the description of an unnamed part of a record that contains no data relevant to a given context (normally capitalised when in a data division).
topics: agriculture
business
horticulture
lifestyle
glosses: A plant that lacks a distinctive shape and can fill inconvenient spaces around other plants in pots or gardens.
topics: business
forestry
glosses: Any standing tree or standard higher than the surrounding coppice in the form of forest known as "coppice under standards".
topics: broadcasting
entertainment
lifestyle
media
music
television
glosses: material of lower cost or quality that is used to fill a certain television time slot or physical medium, such as a music album
Derived terms: filler cap
filler phrase
filler-upper
filler word
floor-filler
nanofiller
postfiller
prefiller
seat filler
shelf filler
spacefiller
stocking filler