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apheresis.

Elision, suppression, or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word, such as the development of special from especial.

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/əˈfɪəɹɪsɪs/Received-Pronunciation/əˈfɛɹəsɪs/US/ˌæfəˈɹisɪs/US
  1. Elision, suppression, or complete loss of a letter or sound (syllable) from the beginning of a word, such as the development of special from especial.

    Canada · US · countable · rhetoric · uncountable
  2. The removal of blood from a patient, and the removal of certain components (such as platelets) from that blood, followed by the transfusion of the filtered blood back to the donor (patient).

    Canada · US · countable · specific · uncountable
  3. Extirpation or extraction of a superfluity (especially a pathological one) from the body, especially blood.

    Canada · US · countable · general · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó Proto-Hellenic *apó Ancient Greek ᾰ̓πό (ăpó) Ancient Greek ἀπο- (apo-) Proto-Indo-European *ser-der.? Proto-Indo-European *selh₁-der.? Ancient Greek αἱρέω (hairéō) Ancient Greek ἀφαιρέω (aphairéō) Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Hellenic *-tis Ancient Greek -τῐς (-tĭs) Ancient Greek -σῐς (-sĭs) Ancient Greek ἀφαίρεσῐς (aphaíresĭs)der. Latin aphaeresisder. English apheresis From Latin aphaeresis, from Ancient Greek ἀφαίρεσις (aphaíresis, “a taking away”), from ἀφαιρέω (aphairéō) (from ἀφ- (aph-), variant of ἀπό (apó, “off, away from”) before an aspirated vowel) + αἱρέω (hairéō, “to take; to snatch”)) + -σις (-sis, suffix forming nouns of action); the grammatical sense developed in Latin.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.