A grammatical term for an inflected form of verbs, adjectives, etc.; includes forms such as imperfective, continuative, terminal, attributive, conditional, imperative, etc.
日本語の動詞は活用形が多く、初級学習ではます形や辞書形を覚えることが重要だ。
Japanese verbs have many inflected forms; at beginner level it's important to learn the -masu form and dictionary form.
『食べる』の連用形は『食べ』で、『食べた』は過去の活用形の一つだ。
The continuative form of '食べる' is '食べ', and '食べた' is one of its past inflected forms.
古文では現代語と異なる活用形があるため、活用表を参照すると分かりやすい。
Classical Japanese has inflected forms different from modern language, so it's helpful to consult conjugation tables.