verb
- to shorten a word by dropping one or more sounds or letters from the end
Usage: linguistics; formal
Examples
- The word 'laboratory' is often apocopated to 'lab' in everyday speech.
- English speakers frequently apocopate 'advertisement' to 'ad'.
- Linguists study how languages apocopate words over time.
- The term 'phone' apocopates the original 'telephone'.
- Informal speech tends to apocopate longer words for convenience.