Entertainment / Literature / Apocope: Deleting a syllable or letter from the end of a word. In The Merchant of Venice, one character says, 'when I ope my lips let no dog bark,' and the last syllable of open falls away into ope before the reader's eyes (1.1.93-94). In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare proclaims, 'If I might in entreaties find success--/ As seld I have the chance--I would desire / My famous cousin to our Grecian tents' (4.5.148). Here the word seldom becomes seld. Apocope is an example of a rhetorical scheme. Note that some scholars modernize this word and refer to it as apocopation. Contrast with syncope.
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Entertainment / Literature / Aphesis: Linguistically, the omission of an unaccented syllable from the front of a word. Contrast with the more general rhetorical term, aphaearesis. MORE
Entertainment / Literature / Apocopated Rhyme And Meter: Poetic use of apocope to create a rhyming word at the end of a line or to balance the number of syllables to stay within metrical restraints (see meter). (The latter type might be more accurately call MORE