Hypertext Webster Gateway: "aphesis"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
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.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
aphesis
n : the gradual disappearance of an initial (usually unstressed)
vowel or syllable as in `squire' for `esquire'
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