a. [f. Gr. ἀν(ά) again + ἄπτωτ-ος indeclinable + -IC: see APTOTIC. (Or ? f. ἀνά back + πτωτικ-ός belonging to case.)] Falling back from inflexion, again uninflected. Applied, by some, to languages, in which most of the inflexions have disappeared by phonetic decay, their place being supplied by relational words and rules of position.
1850. Latham, Varieties of Man, 12. Languages of the English type, Anaptotic.
1858. Penny Cycl., 2nd Supp. 378/1. The languages of the great European races are never aptotic. They are mostly anaptotic, or [else] having amalgamate inflections.
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., II. xiv. § 112 (1875), 322. There have grown out of the amalgamate languages the ‘anaptotic’ languages.
