[a. Gr. ἄφεσις a letting go, f. ἀφιέναι, f. ἀφ’ off, away + ἱέναι to send, let go, Suggested by the Editor in 1880.] The gradual and unintentional loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word; as in squire for esquire, down for adown, St. Loy for St. Eloy, limbeck for alimbeck, ’tention! for attention! It is a special form of the phonetic process called Aphæresis, for which, from its frequency in the history of the English language, a distinctive name is useful.
