inflection point

noun

1

: a moment when significant change occurs or may occur : turning point

At 18, Bobby is at an inflection point that will largely determine the course of his life.

—Stacy Perman

… the gradual move away from big-iron machines toward work stations and personal computers has been going on for years in corporate America—but the inflection point came suddenly.

—Steve Lohr

It depends on us, on the choices we make, particularly at certain inflection points in history; particularly when big changes are happening and everything seems up for grabs.

—Barack Obama

2

mathematics : a point on a curve that separates an arc concave upward from one concave downward and vice versa

Examples of inflection point in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

JPMorgan upgrades Bed Bath & Beyond to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said the stock is at an inflection point. —Michael Bloom, CNBC, 18 Feb. 2025

But police hiring picked back up during the height of the war on drugs in the 1980s and again after another inflection point, the unrest that followed the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the 1991 beating of Black motorist Rodney King. —Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 24 Jan. 2025

Manhattan’s past supply levels suggest these moments are often inflection points, either launching the market into a price frenzy (2016) or holding it in a cautious standstill (2023). —John Walkup, Forbes, 16 Jan. 2025

As part of the NFL Coaches Project, USA TODAY reported that McVay's hiring was the start, or at least the key inflection point, of a dramatic shift in hiring across the NFL. —Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY, 16 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1708, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Rhymes for inflection point

• adjoint
• anoint
• appoint
• checkpoint
• conjoint
• disjoint
• endpoint
• gunpoint
• midpoint
• nonpoint
• pinpoint
• standpoint