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The gradual disappearance of an initial (usually unstressed) vowel or syllable as in `squire' for `esquire'
Answer for the clue "The gradual disappearance of an initial (usually unstressed) vowel or syllable as in `squire' for `esquire' ", 7 letters:
aphesis
Word definitions for aphesis in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (context linguistics prosody English) The loss of the initial unstressed vowel of a word.
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. the gradual disappearance of an initial (usually unstressed) vowel or syllable as in `squire' for `esquire'