inflector

Noun

inflector (plural inflectors)

1. An affix that inflects the base form of a word.
   • These modulants are inflectors of roots to allow them to serve as descriptors, and modulation is desirable because the root form may be retrieved without the modulant when making a generic search.1956, Don D. Andrews, Simon M. Newman, Storage and Retrieval of Contents of Technical Literature, page 5
   • The inflectors of English are relatively few in number, so each has quite a high frequency of occurrence.1987, Whitney French Bolton, David Crystal, The English Language, page 82
2. A device for bending a particle beam.
   • In order to prevent the beams striking the inflectors on subsequent turns, each ring would contain a set of foils, thick at the outer radius but thinning to zero about one inch inside the inflector radius.1956, European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN Symposium on High Energy Accelerators and Pion Physics
   • The introduction of electrons into the chamber is accomplished by means of an iron antimagnetic channel with subsequent bending by electrically pulsed inflectors.1967, Soviet Atomic Energy - Volume 21, page 790
3. A muscle that contracts to cause a part of the body to curve inwards.
   • The two last, the intertransversarii and quadrati lumborum, are here enumerated with the dorsal inflectors, because the are dorsad of the centre of motion, and accordingly relaxed in the dead body, when the trunk is inflected in the dorsal direction.1808, John Barclay, Muscular Motions of the Human Body, page 347
   • The scateni medii appear to act exclusively as lateral inflectors.1825, John Flint South, The Dissector's Manual
4. Something that inflects or modulates.
   • Since, in general, bodies that are good radiators are poor inflectors and good absorbers, and vice versa.,1919, Mining and Metallurgy - Issues 151-156
   • And so, while it wouldn't be quite proper to call estrogen a neurotransmitter, it would be proper to call it and the neurotransmitters members of a large chemical family of neuromodulators—brain inflectors.1999, Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate Geography, →ISBN