deflation.

1. A sustained decline in the overall level of prices in an economy.

2. A reduction in an object’s expanded size or pressure through the removal or escape of gas.

3. The puncturing of someone’s confidence, pretension or exaggerated sense of importance.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• price deflation
• deflation risk

On the page

Persistent deflation increased the real burden of debts with fixed repayment amounts.

A fall in one commodity’s price did not establish economy-wide deflation.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: financial analysis, risk evaluation, comparison, explanation. Disciplines: economics, finance, business. Commonness: moderately common.