What is "correption"

Correption \Cor*rep"tion\ (k?r-r?p"sh?n), n. [L. correptio, fr. corripere to seize.] Chiding; reproof; reproach. [Obs.]

Angry, passionate correption being rather apt to provoke, than to amend.
--Hammond.

n. (context obsolete English) chide; reproof; reproach

In Latin and Greek poetry, correption (; Latin correptiō "a shortening") is the shortening of a long vowel at the end of one word before a short vowel at the beginning of the next. Vowels next to each other in neighboring words are in hiatus.

Homer uses correption in dactylic hexameter:

• Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
  πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε·
  — Odyssey
• Tell me, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full
  many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.
  — translation by A.T. Murray

Here the sequence η ε in bold must be pronounced as ε ε to preserve the long—short—short syllable weight sequence of a dactyl. Thus, the scansion of the second line is thus:

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