Words / I / General

inflection

noun/ɪnˈflɛkʃən/

B2CEFR level
45/100Rarity: uncommon
TechnicalRegister

The modulation of the pitch or tone of the voice.

A rising inflection at the end of the sentence turned it into a question.

Similar: intonation, modulation

Origin: From Latin inflectere 'to bend in'.

Topic: speech in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: speech