Aphaeresis
Quick answer: Aphaeresis is the omission of a sound or syllable from the start of a word, as in 'tis for it is. Learn how poets use it to keep a metrical line on count.
Aphaeresis is the omission of a sound or syllable from the beginning of a word, so that it is becomes 'tis and against becomes 'gainst. The name comes from a Greek word meaning a taking away, and that is exactly what happens: the front of the word is clipped, almost always to save one syllable. It belongs to a small family of contraction devices that poets writing in strict meter have relied on for centuries, alongside syncope, which trims the middle of a word, and apocope, which trims the end.
Why clip words at all? In accentual-syllabic verse every syllable counts, and a line that runs one syllable over can feel baggy. Aphaeresis let poets tuck an extra syllable out of sight while keeping the word recognisable. You will meet it constantly in older verse, in hymns and ballads, and in a looser modern form in song lyrics and spoken word, where 'cause and 'bout do the same quiet work.
How It Works
The clipped material is nearly always an unstressed opening syllable, and an apostrophe usually marks the loss on the page. Take this invented pentameter line: The ferry horn sounds 'cross the frozen bay. Written in full, across would push the line to eleven syllables. Clipped to 'cross, the line sits at ten, and the iambic rhythm runs clean. The reader barely registers the surgery, which is the point: aphaeresis should feel like natural speech compression, not like a word with a limb missing.
Where You Will See It
Shakespeare uses 'tis and 'twas so often that many readers stop noticing them, and the habit runs right through English verse of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Hymn writers loved the device because hymn meters are unforgiving: a congregation singing a fixed tune cannot absorb a spare syllable. Robert Burns used clipped forms to catch the sound of spoken Scots. In our own time the device survives in dialect poetry and lyrics, where 'bout, 'cause and 'round record how people actually talk rather than how meter demands they talk.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Handle it with care. In a contemporary poem, 'tis and 'gainst sound like costume drama, and editors notice. The honest modern uses are two: dialect and voice, where the clipped form is how your speaker genuinely sounds, and light or comic verse, where a little archaism is part of the joke. If you are writing formal meter and a line will not scan, rebuilding the phrase is almost always better than reaching for an apostrophe. Contraction should record real speech, not paper over a metrical crack.
What poets can take from this
- Reserve archaic clips like 'tis and 'gainst for deliberate period flavour or humour.
- Use clipped forms such as 'cause and 'bout when your speaker's voice genuinely carries them.
- Read the line aloud: if the contraction trips the tongue, rewrite the phrase instead.
- Check that the apostrophe faces the right way and marks exactly what was dropped.
- If every third line needs a contraction to scan, the problem is the meter, not the words.
Try it yourself
Write eight lines in the voice of a speaker whose dialect naturally clips word openings ('bout, 'cross, 'cause). Then rewrite the same eight lines in full standard forms and compare which version sounds more alive.
Questions
What is the difference between aphaeresis and apocope?
Aphaeresis drops a sound from the beginning of a word, as in 'tis for it is. Apocope drops a sound from the end, as in morn for morning. Both are forms of elision used to control syllable count.
Is 'tis an example of aphaeresis?
Yes, it is the textbook case. The unstressed vowel of it is is removed from the front of the phrase, leaving a single syllable. Shakespeare and his contemporaries used it constantly to manage their pentameter.
Do modern poets still use aphaeresis?
Rarely in its archaic forms, but everyday clips like 'cause, 'bout and 'em are the same device in modern dress. Poets writing in dialect or capturing spoken voice use them all the time.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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