inflation

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
inflation/ɪnˈfleɪʃn/

▶noun

• 1 the action of inflating or the condition of being inflated.

• 2 Economics a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money.

• 3 Astronomy (in some theories of cosmology) a very brief exponential expansion of the early universe, interrupting the standard linear expansion.

– derivatives
inflationary adjective,
inflationism noun,
inflationist noun & adjective.