Annette Gordon-Reed & Peter S. Onuf, Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination (W.W. Norton & Co. 2016).
In information technology, a boilerplate is a unit of writing that can be reused over and over without change. By extension, the idea is sometimes applied to reusable programming as in boilerplate code. The term derives from steel manufacturing, where boilerplate is steel rolled into large plates for use in steam boilers.
Boilerplate (text) - Boilerplate language. 1  In contract law, the term boilerplate language describes the parts of a contract that are considered standard.