Definition of "aphesis" []

• The loss of an initial, usually unstressed vowel, as in cute from acute. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel a process called aphesis; it means “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”."
• "Among phonetic changes which occur with more or less regularity are those called aphesis, epenthesis, epithesis, assimilation, dissimilation, and metathesis, convenient terms which are less learned than they appear."
• "[38] But anesis and aphesis in I.Esd. iv. 62 looks like a word-play in what may not be original Greek; though a Semitic original of that section of I.Esd. (iii. 1 to v. 6) is by no means proved."