Meaning & use

inflection

noun·Academic

Last updated

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.

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