Definition of INFLATION

inflation

Plural: inflations

Noun

  • a general and progressive increase in prices
    • "in inflation everything gets more valuable except money"
  • (cosmology) a brief exponential expansion of the universe (faster than the speed of light) postulated to have occurred shortly after the big bang
  • lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity
  • the act of filling something with air
  • An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas or liquid.
  • An increase in the quantity of money, leading to a devaluation of existing money.
  • An increase in the general level of prices or in the cost of living.
  • A decline in the value of money.
  • Undue expansion or increase, as of academic grades.
  • An extremely rapid expansion of the universe, theorized to have occurred very shortly after the Big Bang.

Examples

  • Due to inflation, the monthly gym fee is rising by 10% from January.
  • The inflation of the balloon took five hours.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French inflation (“swelling”), from Latin īnflātiō (“expansion", "blowing up”), from īnflātus, the perfect passive participle of īnflō (“blow into, expand”), from in (“into”) + flō (“blow”). By surface analysis, inflate + -ion.

Scrabble Score: 12

inflation: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
inflation: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
inflation: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 15

inflation: valid Words With Friends Word