In phonetics and phonology, apheresis (; ) is a sound change in which a word-initial vowel is lost, e.g., American > <nowiki /> 'Merican. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any initial sound (including consonants) from a word or, in a less technical sense, to the loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word. The more specific term aphesis (and its adjective aphetic) is sometimes used to refer to the loss of unstressed vowels.
The term apheresis, attested since at least 1550 in English, comes from Latin aphaeresis, from Greek á¼ÂÃÂñïÃÂõÃÂùàaphairesis, "taking away" from á¼ÂÃÂñùÃÂÃÂàaphaireo from á¼ÂÃÂàapo, "away" and ñἱÃÂÃÂàhaireo, "to take".
The hyponyms aphesis () and aphetic, coined in 1880 by James Murray, are inspired by Greek á¼ÂÃÂõÃÂùàaphesis, "letting go" from á¼ÂÃÂï÷üù aphiemi from á¼ÂÃÂàapo, "away" and ἵ÷üù hÃÂemi, "send forth".
In historical phonetics and phonology, the term "apheresis" is often limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel. The Oxford English Dictionary gives that particular kind of apheresis the name aphesis (; from Greek á¼ÂÃÂõÃÂùÃÂ).
Synchronic apheresis is more likely to occur in informal speech than in careful speech: scuse me vs. excuse me, and How 'bout that? vs. How about that? It typically supplies the input enabling acceptance of apheresized forms historically, such as especially > specially. The result may be doublets, such as especially and specially, or the pre-apheresis form may fail to survive (Old French > English scarce). An intermediate status is common in which both forms continue to exist but lose their transparent semantic relationship: abate 'decrease, moderate', with bate now confined to the locution with bated breath 'with breath held back'.