Aphesis

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Aphesis \Aph"e*sis\, n. [Gr. ? a letting go; ? + ? to let go.]
     The loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a
     word; -- the result of a phonetic process; as, squire for
     esquire. --New Eng. Dict.
     [1913 Webster]



From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  aphesis
       n : the gradual disappearance of an initial (usually unstressed)
           vowel or syllable as in `squire' for `esquire'