inflation

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French inflation (“swelling”), from Latin īnflātiō (“expansion", "blowing up”), from īnflātus, the perfect passive participle of īnflō (“blow into, expand”), from in (“into”) + flō (“blow”). Morphologically inflate + -ion.

noun

1. An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas.
   The inflation of the balloon took five hours.
2. (economics) An increase in the quantity of money, leading to a devaluation of existing money.
3. (economics) An increase in the general level of prices or in the cost of living.
   Due to inflation, the monthly gym fee is rising by 10% from January.
4. (economics) A decline in the value of money.
5. Undue expansion or increase, as of academic grades.
6. (cosmology) An extremely rapid expansion of the universe, theorized to have occurred very shortly after the Big Bang.