Inflection vs. Flexion — What's the Difference?

In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation, in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness. The inflection of verbs is called conjugation, and one can refer to the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, participles, prepositions and postpositions, numerals, articles etc., as declension.

The act of bending a joint or limb in the body by the action of flexors.

The act of inflecting or the state of being inflected.

The resulting condition of being bent.

Alteration in pitch or tone of the voice.

A part that is bent.

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.

The act of bending a joint, especially a bone joint; the counteraction of extension.

An affix indicating such a grammatical feature, as the -s in the English third person singular verb form speaks.

The state of being bent or flexed.

The paradigm of a word.

Deviation from straightness.

A pattern of forming paradigms, such as noun inflection or verb inflection.

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

A turning or bending away from a course or position of alignment.

The act of flexing or bending; a turning.

Change in the form of a word (morphologic change) to express different grammatical categories.

A bending; a part bent; a fold.

An instance of such change.

Syntactical change of form of words, as by declension or conjugation; inflection.

(grammar) An affix representing such an instance.

The bending of a limb or joint; that motion of a joint which gives the distal member a continually decreasing angle with the axis of the proximal part; - distinguished from extension.

Any form produced by such an instance of a change, such as the principal parts for any given stem: any of the declined or conjugated forms that constitute its declension or conjugation.

The state of being flexed (as of a joint)

A change in pitch or tone of voice.

Deviation from a straight or normal course

(mathematics) A change in curvature from concave to convex or from convex to concave.

Act of bending a joint; especially a joint between the bones of a limb so that the angle between them is decreased

A turning away from a straight course.

(optometry) Diffraction.

The act of inflecting, or the state of being inflected.

A bend; a fold; a curve; a turn; a twist.

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

The variation or change which words undergo to mark case, gender, number, comparison, tense, person, mood, voice, etc.

Any change or modification in the pitch or tone of the voice.

Same as Diffraction.

A change in the form of a word (usually by adding a suffix) to indicate a change in its grammatical function

The patterns of stress and intonation in a language

Deviation from a straight or normal course

A manner of speaking in which the loudness or pitch or tone of the voice is modified