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INFLATION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of filling something with air
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("inflation" is a kind of...):
enlargement; expansion (the act of increasing (something) in size or volume or quantity or scope)
Antonym:
deflation (the act of letting the air out of something)
Derivation:
inflate (become inflated)
inflate (fill with gas or air)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity
Synonyms:
inflation; ostentation; ostentatiousness; pomposity; pompousness; pretentiousness; puffiness; splashiness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("inflation" is a kind of...):
inelegance (the quality of lacking refinement and good taste)
Sense 3
Meaning:
(cosmology) a brief exponential expansion of the universe (faster than the speed of light) postulated to have occurred shortly after the big bang
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("inflation" is a kind of...):
blowup; detonation; explosion (a violent release of energy caused by a chemical or nuclear reaction)
Domain category:
cosmogeny; cosmogony; cosmology (the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and evolution and structure of the universe)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A general and progressive increase in prices
Example:
in inflation everything gets more valuable except money
Synonyms:
inflation; rising prices
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural processes
Hypernyms ("inflation" is a kind of...):
economic process (any process affecting the production and development and management of material wealth, or, according to Carmine Gorga, Ph.D., author of the book 'The Economic Process', the process of production of real wealth, distribution of ownership rights over real and monetary wealth, and consumption or expenditure of monetary wealth to purchase real wealth)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inflation"):
cost-pull inflation (inflation caused by an increase in the costs of production)
demand-pull inflation (inflation caused by an increase in demand or in the supply of money)
reflation (inflation of currency after a period of deflation; restore the system to a previous state)
stagflation (a period of slow economic growth and high unemployment (stagnation) while prices rise (inflation))
Antonym:
deflation (a contraction of economic activity resulting in a decline of prices)
disinflation (a reduction of prices intended to improve the balance of payments)
Derivation:
inflate (increase the amount or availability of, creating a rise in value)
inflate (cause prices to rise by increasing the available currency or credit)
inflationary (associated with or tending to cause increases in inflation)
