inflections

Noun

inflection (countable and uncountable, plural inflections)

1. (uncountable) The linguistic phenomenon of morphological variation, whereby words take a number of distinct forms in order to express different grammatical features.
   • In English, word order often does the work that inflection did in Latin.
   1. (countable) Any specific type of morphological variation, which applies to a given word class.
      • The second-person imperative is a verbal inflection found in many Indo-European languages.
   2. (countable) An affix representing a given variation.
      • English's regular inflection for number in plural nouns is the suffix -s.
   3. (countable) 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.
      • Recite every inflection for each of these words.
2. A change in pitch or tone of voice.
3. A change in curvature from concave to convex or from convex to concave.

See all 8 meanings of inflection