Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Having undergone inflection: Describes a word whose form has been changed, typically by adding an ending (an affix), to express a grammatical function such as tense, case, number, gender, mood, or person. This is a core concept in grammar.
   • Altered in tone or pitch: Describes a voice or sound that changes in its musical quality, rising and falling.

Usage

• Grammatical Inflection: Use "inflected" to describe words or languages that use changes in word form to show grammatical relationships.
• Vocal Modulation: Use "inflected" to describe speech or a voice that is not monotone but varies in pitch for expression.

Examples

• Grammatical Inflection:

  • The word "swam" is the inflected past tense form of the verb "swim."
  • Latin is a highly inflected language, where nouns change endings to show their role in a sentence.
  • In the phrase "the cat's toy," the word "cat's" is an inflected form showing possession.

• Vocal Modulation:

  • Her voice was richly inflected, full of emotion and emphasis.
  • He spoke in a flat, uninflected monotone that made the lecture hard to follow.

Advanced Usage

• "Inflected language": A language, like German, Russian, or Arabic, that relies heavily on word inflections to convey grammatical meaning, as opposed to using word order or separate particles.

  • Studying an inflected language often requires memorizing many different word endings.

• "Inflected form": The specific changed version of a base word (lemma).

  • "Children," "went," and "happiest" are all inflected forms of their base words.

Variants and Related Words

• Inflect (verb): To change the form of a word to express a grammatical function; or to modulate the voice.

  • Verbs inflect for tense.
  • A good actor knows how to inflect their voice to hold the audience's attention.

• Inflection (noun): The process or result of inflecting; a change in the form of a word; or a modulation of the voice.

  • The inflection "-s" can mark plurality in nouns or the third person singular in verbs.
  • The rising inflection in her voice indicated she was asking a question.

• Inflectional (adjective): Relating to or characterized by inflection.

  • The "-ed" suffix is an inflectional morpheme for the past tense.

Synonyms

• Grammatical sense: Conjugated (for verbs), declined (for nouns/adjectives), modified, altered.
• Vocal sense: Modulated, melodic, rhythmic, varied.

Antonyms

• Grammatical sense: Uninflected, invariant, root, base form.
• Vocal sense: Monotonous, flat, unmodulated, toneless.

Adjective

1. showing alteration in form (especially by the addition of affixes)
   • `boys' and `swam' are inflected English words
   • German is an inflected language
2. (of the voice) altered in tone or pitch
   • his southern Yorkshire voice was less inflected and singing than her northern one