Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The loss of one of two identical or similar adjacent syllables in a word, as in Latin nūtrīx, "nurse,” from earlier *nūtrītrīx.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The utterance of only one of two similar adjacent syllables or sounds that appear in the full pronunciation of the word. The phenomenon is a universal linguistic fact, and is parallel to that of haplography (which see). Both influences appear in the history of many words. Examples areidolatry for idololatry, symbology for symbolology, register for registrer, registrar, ably for ablely, idly for idlely, wholly (pronounced wholy) for wholely, etc.
Wiktionary
- n. The process of deleting one of two almost identical syllables within a word, as in ‘library’ > libry (pronounced ['laɪbri]).
Etymologies
- Greek haplous, single, simple; see haploid + -logy.
Examples
“While it's acceptable to suggest that Etruscan had some sort of prior syncope before the documented one that occured around 500 BCE, suggesting also that an ablative *-si-si was reduced to -is by way of a convenient one-time case of added haplology seemed to me ad hoc.”
“As the Grandmaster of the Spoken Word, she was versed in many secret methods of power, including the bildungsroman form of twisting moral identities and the calculated use of haplology and edulcoration.”
“I'll take that "unsayable" in the sense of ugly, unpleasant, or disagreeable, and the phenomenon therefore as a common haplology.”
“What we seem to have here, rather, is a haplology or "haplogy," as some linguists can't resist calling it, the process which gave us Latin nutrix in place of the predicted *nutritrix and which leads people to say missippi instead of mississippi.”
“He's saying that gingerly is, basically and traditionally, an adjective, and the adverbial use results as a haplology of the derived form gingerlyly.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘haplology’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Words about Words
backronym, contranym, haplology, enallage, paronomasia, omniana, scripturient, ambigram, idioglossia, dysphemism, tmesis, panvocalic and 6 more...
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howtoflyhome's list
tacenda, ubiquarian, codify, velleity, psithurism, susurration, palaver, haplology, allophony, austere, popinjay, redolent and 11 more...
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Fun-Sounding Words
oscillation, elation, axolotl, saleratus, tmesis, epeolatry, trothplight, just for fun, nyctalgia, hendiadys, anaptyxis, haplology and 5 more...
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