inflector

plural inflectors

1. human sciencesAn affix that inflects the base form of a word.

   The inflectors of English are relatively few in number, so each has quite a high frequency of occurrence.

   1987, Whitney French Bolton, David Crystal, The English Language, page 82

   2 more examples

   These modulants are inflectors of roots to allow them to serve as descriptors, and modulation is desirable because the root form may be retrieved without the modulant when making a generic search.

   1956, Don D. Andrews, Simon M. Newman, Storage and Retrieval of Contents of Technical Literature, page 5

   This is an observation I make in Jefferies (1990) in connection with certain allomorphs of the copulative, 'possessive' and some of the adverbialising prefixes in Shona, where, again, these inflectors depend on 'their' stems for vowel shape and how their underlying high tones are realised.

   1998, Zambezia - Volumes 25-27, page 14

2. natural sciencesA device for bending a particle beam.

   Although various type of inflectors are possible (see S 4.1), the choice was made on an electrostatic mirror for reason of simplicity and compactness.

   1984, Felix Marti, Tenth International Conference on Cyclotrons and Their Applications

   2 more examples

   In order to prevent the beams striking the inflectors on subsequent turns, each ring would contain a set of foils, thick at the outer radius but thinning to zero about one inch inside the inflector radius.

   1956, European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN Symposium on High Energy Accelerators and Pion Physics

   The introduction of electrons into the chamber is accomplished by means of an iron antimagnetic channel with subsequent bending by electrically pulsed inflectors.

   1967, Soviet Atomic Energy - Volume 21, page 790

3. anatomyA muscle that contracts to cause a part of the body to curve inwards.

   The scateni medii appear to act exclusively as lateral inflectors.

   1825, John Flint South, The Dissector's Manual

   2 more examples

   The two last, the intertransversarii and quadrati lumborum, are here enumerated with the dorsal inflectors, because the are dorsad of the centre of motion, and accordingly relaxed in the dead body, when the trunk is inflected in the dorsal direction.

   1808, John Barclay, Muscular Motions of the Human Body, page 347

   Besides, lightness, toughness, and elasticity are the qualities of the skeleton most essential to the shark : to yield to the contraction of the lateral inflectors, and aid in the recoil, are the functions which the spine is mainly required to fulfil in the act of locomotion, and to which its alternating elastic balls of fluid, and semi-ossified bi-concave vertebrae, so admirably adapt it.

   1866, Richard Owen, On the anatomy of vertebrates - Volume 1, page 245

4. Something that inflects or modulates.

   Since, in general, bodies that are good radiators are poor inflectors and good absorbers, and vice versa.,

   1919, Mining and Metallurgy - Issues 151-156

   2 more examples

   And so, while it wouldn't be quite proper to call estrogen a neurotransmitter, it would be proper to call it and the neurotransmitters members of a large chemical family of neuromodulators—brain inflectors.

   1999, Natalie Angier, Woman: An Intimate Geography, →ISBN

   The third category is bloggers as amplifiers and inflectors of news, notably by extending discussion and debate in the blogosphere.

   2007, Sarah Maltby, Richard Keeble, Communicating War: Memory, Media and Military, page 71