Inclination

How to spell inclination

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce inclination

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inclination mean?

1. nounA natural tendency or disposition to act or feel in a particular way.
2. nounThe angle at which a surface or line slopes away from the horizontal or vertical.

Inclination in a sentence

• Her first inclination was to refuse the offer outright.

• The steep inclination of the road made cycling exhausting.

• He has a strong inclination toward saving rather than spending.

• Engineers measured the inclination of the ramp before approving it.

Where does inclination come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin inclinatio, a noun built on the verb inclinare, which literally meant 'to lean' or 'to bend toward something', formed from the prefix in- 'toward' and the verb clinare 'to lean'. That same clinare root, meaning to lean or slope, also gave English a whole family of related words such as 'recline' (to lean back), 'decline' (to lean away or down), and 'incline' itself. The literal sense of a physical leaning or slope came first, and the figurative meaning, a person's mental leaning or natural tendency toward something, developed by easy extension, much as we still say someone 'leans toward' a view. English took the word in during the late 1300s and 1400s, partly through Old French inclinacion and partly straight from the Latin. The spelling trap sits in that unstressed middle: the clear 'clin' from clinare is what keeps the letter sequence regular, even though the vowel after it softens to a schwa in speech.

How the word is built

• in- (toward)
• clin (to lean/bend)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)