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

Their fortunes just happened to wear off at an inflection point, and as aggressively as possible. —Noah White, Miami Herald, 14 Mar. 2026

Some steep slopes need a little more engineering in the way of terracing, retaining walls or placement of boulders at different water inflection points on the embankment. —The San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Mar. 2026

Cloud adoption hitting an inflection point. —Pia Singh, CNBC, 11 Mar. 2026

Finnegan points to 2019 as a structural inflection point, when Ireland became one of the first countries in Europe to link its tax incentive directly to skills development. —Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 11 Mar. 2026

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