inflation
(ɪnˈfleɪʃən)
[ad. L. inflātiōn-em, n. of action f. inflāre to inflate. Cf. obs. F. inflation, -flacion, etc. (15th c. in Godef.).]
1. The action of inflating or distending with air or gas.
| 1601 Holland Pliny Explan. Words, Inflation, swelling or puffing vp with winde. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iv. vi. 194 Whereby..the putrifying parts do suffer a turgescence and inflation, and becomming airy and spumous..ascend unto the surface of the water. 1802 Med. Jrnl. VIII. 338 Having separated by inflation, the skin and muscles of one of the posterior extremities of a frog. Mod. The inflation of military balloons with hydrogen instead of coal-gas. |
2. The condition of being inflated with air or gas, or of being distended or swollen as if with air.
| a 1340 Hampole Psalter l. 8 It purges þe longes of inflacioun. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. xi. 504 This condyment is esy and iocounde Wherof inflacioun shal noon redounde. c 1550 Lloyd Treas. Health (1585) F viij A julep of Roses is good for the inflation of the longes. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. xxi. 162 The inflation or swelling of the body made in this animal upon inspiration or drawing in its breath. 1732 Arbuthnot Rules of Diet 294 Winds coming upwards, Inflations and Tumours of the Belly are signs of a phlegmatick Constitution. 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. i. (1879) 14 By the inflation of its body, the papillae with which the skin is covered, become erect and pointed. |
3. The condition of being puffed up with vanity, pride, or baseless notions.
| 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (1531) 34 Singular inflacyons & elacyons of the mynde. 1658 Baxter Saving Faith vii. 54 The undoubted fruit of this Doctrine received, would be the inflation of audacious, fiery, fantastick spirited men. 1844 H. H. Wilson Brit. India I. 69 The inflation of Holkar's ambition with the hope that [etc.]. 1883 Froude Short Stud. IV. ii. i. 172 The words well convey the inflation with which the Catholic revivalists were going to their work. |
4. The quality of language or style when it is swollen with big or pompous words; turgidity, bombast.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1199 A tragicall pompe, and swelling inflation of words. 1791 W. Beaumont tr. Barthelemi's Trav. Anacharsis Greece (1796) I. p. vi, A style which to an English reader will appear to border on inflation and bombast. 1824 Dibdin Libr. Comp. 713 Conceits were the then fashion of the age, as inflation and obscurity are now. |
† 5. Of a plague: Spread, extension (cf. dilatation 2); or (?) increase of virulence. Obs. rare.
| 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) II. 444 This pest rais with sa terribill inflation, that ilk man that tuk it deceissit within two dayis efter. |
6. Great or undue expansion or enlargement; increase beyond proper limits; esp. of prices, the issue of paper money, etc. spec. An undue increase in the quantity of money in relation to the goods available for purchase; (in lay use) an inordinate rise in prices.
| 1838 D. D. Barnard Speeches & Rep. 195 The property pledge can have no tendency whatever to prevent an inflation of the currency. 1841 in X. D. MacLeod Biogr. F. Wood (1856) 75 We have been periodically visited by panics, revulsions, and distresses, inflations and reäctions. 1863 W. S. Jevons Serious Fall in Value of Gold i. 13 The inflation of credit must be checked by the well defined boundary of available capital. Ibid. 14 A revulsion occasioned by a failure of the national capital must cause..a collapse of credit, and of any inflation of prices due to credit. Ibid. 25 It is impossible to account for this permanent change [in prices] by any excessive speculation, inflation of currency, or credit. 1864 Webster, Inflation..4 Undue expansion or increase, from over-issue;—said of currency. 1870 W. W. Fowler Ten Yrs. Wall St. 315 Used ten thousand shares of the new stock to load up the bulls at these inflation prices. 1874 N.Y. Tribune 26 Nov. 5 An Inflation Party [has been organized] reaffirming, in effect, the financial plank of the Indiana Independents. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. CXXVI. 156 Despite the illegal inflation authorized by President Grant. 1885 Manch. Exam. 18 Mar. 5/1 The never-failing tendency to a needless inflation of our armaments. 1887 Jessopp Arcady ii. 62 The inflation of prices brought with it a speculative mania. 1922 Encycl. Brit. XXX. 984/1 Inflation had the effect of reducing the pre-war unit of value. 1949 Times 10 Sept. 5/6 Inflation is used to describe the situation in any country where there is an excess of currency and credit in relation to the work to be done, an excess of purchasing power and effective demand in relation to its goods available, with prices and wages, and prices again, rising in consequence. 1967 Economist 16 Dec. 1143/3 That fearsome thing called ‘inflation psychology’ is taking hold. 1972 Accountant 5 Oct. 434/5 He made a plea for a Dutch recommendation on inflation accounting in external reporting. 1973 Sun 18 Jan. 16 The Premier named inflation as public enemy No. 1. |
7. Inspiration, afflatus. rare.
| 1835 I. Taylor Spir. Despot. iii. 87 The opinion that the priests and priestesses of the oracular temples were nothing more than involuntary subjects of the divine inflation. |
8. inflation-proof, v. trans., to protect from the effects of monetary inflation; so inflation-proofing; inflation-rubber, a removable rubber sleeve inside each teat cup of a milking machine which, as it is rhythmically inflated and deflated, squeezes the cow's teats; also ellipt. inflation.
| 1973 Times 26 Nov. 14/6 The Chancellor could profitably devote the budget..to inflation-proofing those of our laws and institutions which have been created on the false assumption that monetary values are constant. Ibid. 27 Nov. 18/6 Neither of them enjoys any automatic inflation-proofing beyond the moment of their retirement. 1974 Guardian 23 Jan. 10/1 The cuts affect universities in three ways: delayed building, a loss of inflation-proofing in current spending, and doubt about student grants. |
| 1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Feb. 114/2 Old rubberware such as used inflations must never be allowed to accumulate..close to the dairy. Ibid. Oct. 301/3 Inflation rubbers give quicker milking if they retain their tension. 1960 B. Crump Good Keen Man 102 His bellowing discourse on the good and bad brands of inflation-rubbers for milking machines. |
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Add: [2.] b. Astron. The period of exponential expansion, lasting a minute fraction of a second, postulated in the inflationary model of the universe.
| 1981 Nature 2 July 35/2 A Universe with only moderate anistropy will undergo inflation and will be rapidly isotropized. 1982 Physical Rev. Lett. CVIII. B. 389 It is shown that the existence of a sufficiently long period of exponential expansion (inflation) in the universe would provide a natural solution of the horizon and flatness problems in cosmology and of the primordial monopole problem in grand unified theories. 1985 Nature 8 Aug. 482/2 Hawking and colleagues suggest that the Universe had a non-singular beginning followed by a period of very rapid expansion (which goes under the name of inflation). 1988 T. Ferris Coming of Age in Milky Way iii. xviii. 360 Inflation thus explained why the cosmic background radiation is isotropic, and why the quarks and electrons of the earth are identical to those of the Coma cluster of galaxies. |