INFLECTION, also especially BrE inflexion. A grammatical form of a word. Some languages make more use of inflections than others: LATIN is highly INFLECTED for nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs, whereas FRENCH is highly inflected for verbs but less so for other parts of speech. Generally, verbs inflect for MOOD, TENSE, PERSON, NUMBER, while nouns and adjectives inflect for NUMBER AND GENDER. Such inflections may involve affixes, sound and spelling changes (including stress shifts), SUPPLETION, or a mixture of these. In English, there are relatively few inflections. Verbs inflect through suffixation (look/looks/looking/looked), but some irregular verbs have past forms that depart from the norm (see/sees/seeing/saw/seen; swim/swims/swimming/swam/swum; put/puts/putting/put). The verb be has eight forms: am, are, be, been, being, is, was, were. Nouns inflect for plurality and possession (worker/workers/worker's/workers') and some adjectives inflect for their comparatives and superlatives (big/bigger/biggest). Seven pronouns have distinct object forms: me, us, her, him, them, thee, whom. See ACCIDENCE, CASE, ENDING, STRONG VERB, WEAK VERB.

in·flec·tion / inˈflekshən/ (chiefly Brit. also in·flex·ion) • n. 1. Gram. a change in the form of a word (typically the ending) to express a grammatical function or attribute such as tense, mood, person, number, case, and gender. ∎  the process or practice of inflecting words.2. the modulation of intonation or pitch in the voice: she spoke slowly and without inflection | the variety of his vocal inflections. ∎  the variation of the pitch of a musical note.3. chiefly Math. a change of curvature from convex to concave at a particular point on a curve.DERIVATIVES: in·flec·tion·al / -shənl/ adj.in·flec·tion·al·ly / -shənl-ē/ adv.in·flec·tion·less adj.

in·flect / inˈflekt/ • v. [tr.] (often be inflected) 1. Gram. change the form of (a word) to express a particular grammatical function or attribute, typically tense, mood, person, number, case, and gender. ∎  [intr.] (of a word or a language containing such words) undergo such change.2. vary the intonation or pitch of (the voice), esp. to express mood or feeling. ∎  influence or color (music or writing) in tone or style. ∎  vary the pitch of (a musical note).3. technical bend or deflect (something), esp. inward.DERIVATIVES: in·flec·tive / -tiv/ adj.

agglutination The clumping together by antibodies of microscopic foreign particles, such as red blood cells or bacteria, so that they form a visible pellet-like precipitate. Agglutination is a specific reaction, i.e. a particular antigen will only clump in the presence of its specific antibody; it therefore provides a means of identifying unknown bacteria and determining blood group. When blood of incompatible blood groups (e.g. group A and group B – see ABO system) is mixed together agglutination of the red cells occurs (haemagglutination). This is due to the reaction between antibodies in the plasma (agglutinins) and agglutinogens (antigens) on the surface of the red cells.

inflection Variation in the form of a lexical item (word) that distinguishes its grammatical relationship to other words in a sentence without altering its part of speech. In a common type of inflection, affixes are added to a stem or root form in order to distinguish tense, person, number, gender, voice or case. In English, this is usually achieved by adding different endings to the word stem – singular noun ‘house’ gives plural ‘houses’.