inflate: [16] Inflate comes from inflātus, the past participle of Latin inflāre ‘blow into’. This was a compound verb formed from the prefix in- and flāre ‘blow’ (a distant relative of English blow). The use of inflate and inflation as technical terms in economics to denote uncontrolled growth in money supply, credit, etc originated in 1830s America. => blow[inflate etymology, inflate origin, 英语词源]