Apheresis (linguistics)

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In phonetics and phonology, apheresis (/əˈfɛrɪsɪs, əˈfɪərɪsɪs/; British English: aphaeresis) is the loss of a word-initial vowel producing a new form called aphetism (e.g. American > '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.^[1]