Aphesis

In the development of language, aphesis is the gradual and unintentional loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word. It derives from the Classical Greek aphesis meaning ‘letting go’. Examples are ‘squire’ from ‘esquire’, ‘specially’ from ‘especially’, ‘cute’ from ‘acute’, ‘lone’ from ‘alone’, ‘possum’ from ‘opossum’. The aphetic use of ‘way’ from ‘away’ has also established itself in the language. Way used to written with an apostrophe, as in ‘way, but this protocol has largely fallen away in expressions like ‘we were way off the mark’ and ‘we went way to the end of the queue’. This aphetic use of away is also evident in slang expressions like ‘way out’, ‘way cool’ and the like.