Meaning & use
inflection
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A change in the pitch or tone of the voice, or a change in the form of a word to express grammatical features such as tense or number.
See it in a sentence
A slight upward inflection made her statement sound like a question.
In English, the ending "-ed" is an inflection that typically marks the past tense.
A note on using this word
In business and math, "inflection point" refers to a moment where a trend changes direction, an extended sense of the grammatical meaning.
Another way to use it
2. noun
A point on a curve at which the curvature changes direction.
The graph's inflection point marked where growth began to slow.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “inflection”, then compare your use with the examples above.