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The variation of words by declension, comparison, or conjugation; inflection.

Capable of, or pertaining to, flection or inflection. A flectional word is a phrase in the bud. Earle.

See Circumflexion.

a bending, esp. downward; deviation. The other leads to the same point, through certain deflections. Lowth.

The act of freeing from inflections. Earle.

To free from inflections. Deflectionized languages are said to be analytic. Earle.

The act of bending the knee, particularly in worship. Bp. Stillingfleet.

A slide, modulation, or accent of the voice; as, the rising and the falling inflection.

Of or pertaining to inflection; having, or characterized by, inflection. Max Müller.

Want of reflection.

Not admitting of, or characterized by, inflection.

The return of rays, beams, sound, or the like, from a surface. See Angle of reflection, below. The eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things. Shak.

The reflection of a reflected image or sound. [R.] Bacon.

The accidents, of inflections of words; the rudiments of grammar. Milton.

To give an acute sound to; as, he acutes his rising inflection too much. [R.] Walker.

nslucent variety of common feldspar, or orthoclase, which often shows pearly opalescent reflections; -- called by lapidaries moonstone.

Reflection after an act; later or subsequent thought or expedient.

s, to aim a musket or an arrow, the fist or a blow (at something); to aim a satire or a reflection (at some person or vice).

By reflection; as, echoes are sound produced anacamptically. Hutton.

f words to the genius, structure, or general rules of a language; similarity of origin, inflection, or principle of pronunciation, and the like, as opposed to pl. analogies. Johnson.