inflection
Pronunciation: /ɪnˈflɛkʃən/
The English word “inflection” has 8 meanings listed here.
noun
- The linguistic phenomenon of morphological variation, whereby words take a number of distinct forms in order to express different grammatical features.
- Any specific type of morphological variation, which applies to a given word class.
- An affix representing a given variation.
- Any specific morphological form of a particular word, such as the principal parts for any given stem; any of the declined or conjugated forms that constitute its declension or conjugation.
- A change in pitch or tone of voice.
- A change in curvature from concave to convex or from convex to concave.
- A turning away from a straight course.
- Diffraction.
Etymology
From older inflexion, borrowed from Middle French inflexion, itself borrowed from Latin inflexiōnem (“alteration”, literally “bending”). The English spelling with ⟨ct⟩ is due to influence from inflect or related words like correction.
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More English words
- inflectability
- inflectable
- inflected
- inflectedness
- inflection point
- inflectional
- inflectional morphology
- inflectional phrase
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.