from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. The act of inflecting or the state of being inflected.
- n. Alteration in pitch or tone of the voice.
- n. Grammar An alteration of the form of a word by the addition of an affix, as in English dogs from dog, or by changing the form of a base, as in English spoke from speak, that indicates grammatical features such as number, person, mood, or tense.
- n. Grammar An affix indicating such a grammatical feature, as the -s in the English third person singular verb form speaks.
- n. Grammar The paradigm of a word.
- n. Grammar A pattern of forming paradigms, such as noun inflection or verb inflection.
- n. A turning or bending away from a course or position of alignment.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A change in the form of a word that reflects a change in grammatical function.
- n. A change in pitch or tone of voice.
- n. A change in curvature from concave to convex or from convex to concave.
- n. A turning away from a straight course.
- n. diffraction
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The act of inflecting, or the state of being inflected.
- n. A bend; a fold; a curve; a turn; a twist.
- n. A slide, modulation, or accent of the voice.
- n. The variation or change which words undergo to mark case, gender, number, comparison, tense, person, mood, voice, etc.
- n. Any change or modification in the pitch or tone of the voice.
- n. A departure from the monotone, or reciting note, in chanting.
- n. Same as Diffraction.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The act of inflecting, or the state of being inflected; a bend or bending.
- n. In optics, the peculiar modification or deviation which light undergoes in passing the edges of an opaque body, usually attended by the formation of colored fringes: more commonly called diffraction.
- n. In grammar, the variation of nouns, etc., by declension, and of verbs by conjugation; more specifically, variation in part by internal change, and not by added elements alone.
- n. Modulation of the voice in speaking, or any change in the pitch or tone of the voice in singing.
- n. In geometry, the place on a curve where a tangent moving along the curve by a rolling motion changes the direction of its turning, and begins to turn back; a stationary tangent.
- n. In eccles. chanting, same as accent, 7.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a manner of speaking in which the loudness or pitch or tone of the voice is modified
- n. a change in the form of a word (usually by adding a suffix) to indicate a change in its grammatical function
- n. deviation from a straight or normal course
- n. the patterns of stress and intonation in a language
His responses are delivered without so much as even a change in inflection, always acknowledging the absurdity of his circumstances and the unfortunate reality that has come as a result.
Years after 9/11, I learned in math class that the bottom-most point on a parabola is known as an inflection point - the point where the slope of the line goes from negative to positive.
Years after 9/11, I learned in math class that the bottom-most point on a parabola is known as an inflection point -- the point where the slope of the line goes from negative to positive.
"We targeted 1,313 for last week as a near-term inflection point, and we haven't broken it yet."
Meanwhile, the S&P 500's near-term inflection point holds at 1,284.
Acceleration above that level, should push pair higher, with next resistance area around 126.10 and finally, key midterm inflection point 126.60 -
The 4.5 MBS is down 2 ticks to 100-27, well within a nominal range around the long term inflection point at 100-28.
He seems to have picked up a certain Southern inflection in his voice that I hadn't noticed before.
These variable endings and shifts in words are collectively termed inflection.
His inflection was a touch too elaborately incredulous.