||Aph"e*sis (&?;), n. [Gr. &?; a letting go; &?; + &?; to let go.] The loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word; -- the result of a phonetic process; as, squire for esquire. New Eng. Dict.

• From Greek άφεσισ (letting go)
  
• The loss of the initial unstressed vowel of a word.
       The word "leet" is derived from "élite" by aphesis.