The loss or omission of a sound or short syllable from the beginning of a word, such as 'nother' from 'another' or 'cello' from 'violoncello'.
From Greek aphesis (a letting go, release), from apo- (away) + hiemi (to send). The term was adopted by 19th-century linguists to describe this common pattern of sound change.
Aphesis explains why 'squire' comes from 'esquire'—and shows that languages are living things constantly shedding unnecessary sounds, like how 'wanna' dropped the 'to' from 'want to.'
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