noun

• An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas.
• (economics) An increase in the quantity of money, leading to a devaluation of existing money.
• (economics) An increase in the general level of prices or in the cost of living.
• (economics) A decline in the value of money.
• Undue expansion or increase, as of academic grades.
• (cosmology) An extremely rapid expansion of the universe, theorized to have occurred very shortly after the Big Bang.
• (cosmology) The inflationary epoch of the Universe, where the size of the space of universe expanded at speeds beyond the speed of light. One of the Ages of the Universe. The cosmic era when most formulations of Big Bang theory start their timelines.