Apheresis (linguistics)

In phonetics, apheresis (/əˈfɛrᵻsɪs, əˈfɪərᵻsɪs/; British English:aphaeresis) is the loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word, especially the loss of an unstressed vowel, thus producing a new form called an aphetism (/ˈæfɪtɪzᵊm/).