Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See syneresis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Gram.) The union, or drawing together into one syllable, of two vowels that are ordinarily separated in syllabification; synecphonesis; -- the opposite of diæresis.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun linguistics, prosody the contraction of two vowels into a diphthong or a long vowel.
  • noun chemistry the separating out of the liquid from a gel.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the contraction of two vowels into a diphthong
  • noun the separation of liquid from a gel that is caused by contraction (as in cheese making)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek συναίρεσις (sunairesis, "unification"), from συν (sun, "together") + αἵρεσις (airesis, "taking"), from αἱρέω (aireō, "I take").

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