Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In grammar, to cut off or drop the last letter or syllable of (a word).
  • Cut off: applied— in grammar, to a word from which the last letter or syllable has been cut off, or to the part thus removed; in mathematics, to a series of quotients constituting a continuant, when the first or last member of the series is cut off.

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

  • adjective Shortened by apocope.
  • transitive verb (Gram.) To cut off or drop.

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

  • adjective Shortened by apocope; lacking a final sound or syllable
  • adjective grammar, Arabic language jussive
  • verb linguistics To shorten using apocope; to remove the final sound or syllable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin apocopātus, from Ancient Greek ἀποκόπτω (apokóptō, "cut off").

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Examples

  • As often as they are guilty of interpolating meaningless interjections into their speech, thus giving their hearers the impression that they are saying a great deal more because they are talking a great deal more (or, perhaps by talking more, albeit saying less, they create the illusion that their limited vocabularies are capable of more expression, if not more expressiveness), speakers also tend to apocopate the language.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol V No 2 1978

  • - cutting off end of word. apocopate, v. & a. adj., n.

    xml's Blinklist.com 2008

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