Definition of "inflation" in English

noun

1. An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas or liquid.

   • The inflation of the balloon took five hours.

2. (economics) An increase in the quantity of money, leading to a devaluation of existing money, adjusted for by way of higher nominal values.

   • Due to inflation, the monthly gym fee is rising by 10% from January.

3. Undue expansion or increase, as of academic grades.

4. (cosmology) An extremely rapid expansion of the universe, theorized to have occurred very shortly after the Big Bang.