DIMENSIONS: FORM / Guide
R E F E R E N C E S
Inflection n. 1. modulation of the voice; change in pitch or tone of voice. 2. Also, flection. Gram. a. the process or device of adding affixes to or changing the form of a base word to express syntactic function without changing its form class. b. the paradigm of a word. c. a single pattern of a paradigm: noun inflection; verb inflection. d. the change in the shape of a word, generally by affixation, indicating a change of meaning or syntactic relationship. e. the affix added to produce this change, as the -s in dogs or the -ed in played. f. the systematic description of such processes in a given language, as in serves from serve, sings from sing, and harder from hard [contrasted with derivation]. 3. a bend or angle. 4. Math. a change of curvature from convex to concave or vice versa. Also esp. Brit., inflexion. [var. sp. of inflexion < L inflexion- (s. of inflexio) a bending].
[Urdang, Laurence, ed. Random House Dictionary of The English Language. New York: Random House, 1968.]
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