inflect, v.
(ɪnˈflɛkt)
[ad. L. inflect-ĕre, f. in- (in-2) + flectĕre to bend.]
1. trans. To bend inwards; to bend into a curve or angle; hence, simply, to bend, to curve.
| c 1425 Found. St. Bartholomew's (E.E.T.S.) 5 Whan he from so grete an highnesse wolde inflecte and bowe downe his yie to the lower party donward, he behelde an horrible pytte. 1578 Banister Hist. Man i. 24 These [cartilages] occupying the meane space betwixt the ribbes and brest bone, are by expiration inflected. 1665 Glanvill Scepsis Sci. viii. 44 It cannot be apprehended but that the line be inflected if some parts of it move faster than others. 1712 Blackmore Creation i. (1736) 11 To a determin'd distance they ascend, And there inflect their course, and downward tend. 1732 Arbuthnot Rules of Diet 410 They must be inflected to that side where the Muscle pulls strongest. 1804 C. B. Brown tr. Volney's View Soil U.S. 134 The course of a general wind is often inflected, from 30 to 80 degrees, by the hollow of a river, a ridge of hills [etc.]. 1875 Darwin Insectiv. Pl. ii. 22 All the tentacles were soon energetically inflected. |
b. fig. To bend, incline, dispose.
| c 1555 Harpsfield Divorce Hen. VIII (Camden) 174 Ruth by no means could be inflected..to break company from her mother-in-law. 1624 Gee Foot out of Snare 17 Inflecting, fashioning and refashioning their religion according to the will and wantonness of them. 1657 W. Morice Coena quasi κοινὴ Pref. 2 A gentle suppling and inflecting them to pay their Tythes. 1804 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. II. 276 That memoir of Turgot's which..is at this time still inflecting toward itself the new as it did the old authorities. |
† 2. Optics. To bend in or deflect (rays of light) in passing the edge of an opaque body or through a narrow aperture; to diffract. Obs.
| 1704 Newton Optics (J), Are they [rays of light] not reflected, refracted, and inflected by one and the same principle, acting variously in various circumstances? 1727–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Ray, Sir Isaac Newton suspects they [light-rays] may have..a power of being inflected, or bent, by the action of distant bodies. 1811 [see deflect v. 2 b]. |
3. Gram. To vary the termination (of a word) in order to express different grammatical relations.
| 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 449 As to the inflexions of Adjectives by the degrees of comparison..those which are inflected through all degrees, have several irregularities in the manner of it. 1747 Johnson Plan Dict. Wks. 1787 IX. 178 We are to examine..how they [words] are inflected through their various terminations. 1871 Public Sch. Lat. Gram. §14. 22 Flexion, or Stem-flexion, is the method of inflecting a Stem, that is, of making such changes in its form as may indicate changes in its meaning and use. |
4. To modulate (the voice); spec. in Music, to flatten or sharpen (a note) by a chromatic semitone.
| 1828 Webster, Inflect..3. To modulate, as the voice. 1867 Macfarren Harmony i. 5 With the Greeks, it allowed of no notes inflected by sharps or flats. 1889 Prout Harmony xii. §274 Whenever a modulation takes place, the note inflected by an accidental is regarded as belonging to the key in which it is diatonic. |
Hence inˈflecting ppl. a., that inflects.
| 1666 Phil. Trans. I. 242 The Air light, and clear without inflecting parts. 1831 Brewster Newton (1855) I. ix. 200 He ascribes it [inflexion] to the variable density of the ether within and without the inflecting body. |