Apocopic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describing the linguistic process by which a word loses its last sound or syllable, as in pronouncing 'bo' for 'boy' in certain dialects
2. Relating to the omission of final letters or sounds from a word, a change seen in many historical language developments
3. Characterized by apocope, the dropping of the concluding phoneme or syllable from a spoken or written word

Etymology: "Apocopic" is simply the adjective form of "apocope," the name for the loss of a sound or syllable at the end of a word. The noun came into English from Latin "apocopē," which itself was taken from Ancient Greek "apokopē," meaning "a cutting off." The Greek roots are "apo-," meaning "off" or "away," and "kopē," meaning "a cutting" or "a blow," which is related to the verb "koptein," to cut. So the term is literally a description of something being chopped away. The adjective adds the suffix "-ic," the familiar marker for "relating to" or "characterised by," so "apocopic" describes forms, changes or pronunciations in which a final sound has been dropped. Linguists use it when discussing how some words have shrunk over time, such as the reduction of Old English forms that lost their endings, or the clipping of words in everyday speech.