declension

Noun

Wikipedia declension (plural declensions)

1. (grammar): A way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives according to the inflections they receive.

   In Latin, 'amicus' belongs to the second declension. Most second-declension nouns end in '-i' in the genitive singular and '-um' in the accusative singular.

2. (grammar): The act of declining a word; the act of listing the inflections of a noun, pronoun or adjective in order.

Hypernyms

• inflection (inflexion)

Coordinate terms

• conjugation

Derived terms

• declensional

Anagrams

• indolences

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number (at least singular vs. plural), case (nominative or subjective, genitive or possessive, etc.), and gender. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, including Old English but is much less prominent in Modern English. In contrast to Old English, at least eighty percent of the vocabulary of Modern English has been borrowed from foreign, mostly non-Germanic languages (especially Latin), whose systems of declension conflicted with those of Old English. The resulting compromises effectively eliminated most forms of inflection in late Middle and Modern English