inflect
Americanverb (used with object)
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to alter, adapt, or modulate (the voice).
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to alter or adapt in tone or character: jazz-inflected music.
the power of storytelling inflected through a feminist sensibility;
jazz-inflected music.
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Grammar.
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to apply inflection to (a word).
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to recite or display all or a distinct set of the inflections of (a word); decline or conjugate.
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to bend; turn from a direct line or course.
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Botany. to bend in.
verb (used without object)
verb
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(grammar) to change (the form of a word) or (of a word) to change in form by inflection
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(tr) to change (the voice) in tone or pitch; modulate
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(tr) to cause to deviate from a straight or normal line or course; bend
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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inflectednessnoun
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inflectornoun
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inflectiveadjective
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noninflectedadjective
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uninflectedadjective
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uninflectiveadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inflectsimple
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inflectssimple
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have inflectedperfect
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has inflectedperfect
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am inflectingprogressive
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are inflectingprogressive
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is inflectingprogressive
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have been inflectingperfect progressive
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has been inflectingperfect progressive
Past
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inflectedsimple
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had inflectedperfect
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was inflectingprogressive
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were inflectingprogressive
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had been inflectingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of inflect
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English inflecten, from Latin inflectere “to bend in,” equivalent to in- in- 2 + flectere “to bend, curve”; cf. flex 1
Explanation
To inflect is to speak in a way that reflects — and changes with — your mood. After hearing tragic news, you'll inflect what you say with the sadness you feel. The changing pitch of your voice inflects your words with meaning, and another way to inflect is to change the form of a word for grammatical reasons, including tense, number, or gender. When you inflect verbs, it's also called conjugation. For example, when you change the verb "to be" from "I am" to "we are," you inflect it. The Latin root of inflect is inflectere, "to bend," and also "to change."
Vocabulary lists containing inflect
The Devil's Arithmetic
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Spy School
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flec, flex
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Markets understand this dynamic, and they also tend to inflect before the political endgame is formally in place."
From Barron's ● Mar. 26, 2026
She added that January’s gains were broad based across demographics, and that a chaotic month for international affairs hadn’t seemed to inflect consumers’ economic views.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
The analysts said that at Sweetgreen, they expect that “store traffic will take time to inflect positively as macro pressures are likely to persist and consumer spending remains depressed, particularly among younger consumers.”
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 6, 2026
If the two producers’ generally dissimilar sounds — Dessner leans pastoral, and Antonoff, synthetic — both inflect the record, it could be anything from folk to indie pop.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2024
To cause to deviate from straightness; to bend; to inflect; to make crooked or curved.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah
Jefferies analyst Samad Samana expects that investors will return to application-software names “when growth inflects alongside AI revenues,” he wrote in a Sunday note to clients.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 2, 2026
He inflects his songs with bits of Vermont attitude and lore, and has collaborated with Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves.
From New York Times ● Nov. 3, 2023
The inclusion of a trio of sculptures from earlier in Kaino’s steadily developing career is likewise suggestive of the ways in which evolving personal history inflects an artistic narrative.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2023
“It’s the absence of God that inflects this great moral responsibility on us,” she told the New Yorker.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 2, 2022
And so she dramatizes and inflects it, trying to make the point visible to her apparent also to her hearers.
From Balcony Stories by King, Grace E.
Frank, formerly a member of the pop duo Surfaces, has exploded in the past year by making Christian music that pairs hip-hop inflected beats with relentlessly sunny lyrics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
As a result, Western Digital’s free-cash-flow yield inflected positive at the end of 2024 and has increased ever since.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 18, 2025
I think those things are part of it, but they are inflected naturally.
From Salon ● Oct. 23, 2024
Our place and our rights in this new world of artificial neural networks lie beyond certainty, inflected with the unknowable.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2024
The latter thought, inflected with both promise and peril, should concern us all.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
“We believe the -10 carries a strong pricing profile and will likely be critical for margins inflecting positive in 2027,” wrote RBC analyst Ken Herbert in a preview report.
From Barron's ● Apr. 21, 2026
“We expect the investor debate to remain very sensitive to inflecting top-line momentum.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 10, 2025
“Aggregate hyperscaler cloud revenues are inflecting in 2025 and are expected to continue accelerating in 2026 driven by enterprise AI adoption,” Malik said.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 10, 2025
“While economic uncertainty remains, we believe the profit cycle is inflecting higher,” the strategists wrote in a BofA Global Research report.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 31, 2023
For the rays are repelled by bodies, in both these cases, without the immediate contact of the reflecting or inflecting body.
From Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author by Godwin, William
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
