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

After two decades of meteoric success, the craft brewing industry has hit an inflection point: More breweries closed than opened last year, the first time that has happened since 2005. —Terence McGinley, New York Times, 8 Jan. 2025

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang will speak at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with some investors and analysts viewing it as an inflection point for the AI trade. —Frank Holland, CNBC, 6 Jan. 2025

The season finale has become more of an inflection point than a football game. —Saad Yousuf, The Athletic, 2 Jan. 2025

In a few years, Henriquez may well look back at that X Games rail jam on a chilly December night at Copper Mountain as the inflection point that changed his career forever. —Michelle Bruton, Forbes, 23 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1708, in the meaning defined at sense 2