Apocope
Quick answer: Apocope is the dropping of a sound or syllable from the end of a word, as when open becomes ope. Learn how this old poetic device serves metre today.
Apocope is the loss or deliberate omission of a sound or syllable from the end of a word: 'open' trimmed to 'ope', 'even' to 'e'en', 'evening' to 'eve', 'yonder' to 'yon'. The term comes from a Greek word meaning 'a cutting off'. In poetry it is a metrical tool, shortening a word by one syllable so a line keeps its count; in linguistics it names the historical process by which word endings erode over centuries.
Poets of earlier eras used apocope constantly, and readers met 'morn', 'ope' and 'oft' as ordinary poetic furniture. The device belongs to the same toolbox as elision, but where elision squeezes sounds out of a word's middle or across word boundaries, apocope amputates the tail. Recognising it makes older verse easier to scan and enjoy.
How It Works
Apocope removes a final unstressed syllable or sound, leaving the stress pattern of the line intact. Compare two invented versions of a tetrameter: 'The evening bells begin to ring' scans cleanly, but if the draft needed one syllable fewer, an older poet would write 'The e'en bells now begin to ring'. The clipped form keeps the beat where the full word would overflow it. Chaucer's scribes and later editors also wrestled with apocope of final -e, since Middle English word endings could be sounded or silent as metre required.
Where You Will See It
Shakespeare shortens words at need: 'ope' for open and 'morn' for morning appear across the plays. Milton and the eighteenth century poets inherited the habit, and hymn writers used clipped forms to keep tunes and texts aligned. Some apocopated forms escaped poetry and settled into the language itself; 'cinema' from 'cinematograph' and 'photo' from 'photograph' show the same process working in everyday speech, which is why linguists and poets share the term.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Handle apocope with care in modern writing. Forms like 'ope' and 'e'en' now signal pastiche, useful only when you want a deliberately antique voice or gentle comedy. The living version of the device is informal clipping: 'gonna', 'tellin'', 'prob'ly' and their kin, which compress syllables exactly as apocope always did, but in today's registers. A dialect poem or a piece of spoken-word writing can use such clippings to lock rhythm and voice together, provided the spelling stays consistent throughout.
What poets can take from this
- Treat archaic clippings like ope and e'en as costume; use them only for period or comic effect.
- Use modern informal clippings (gonna, tellin') to compress syllables in dialect and spoken-word poems.
- Keep clipped spellings consistent across a poem so the voice sounds deliberate.
- When scanning older verse, expect shortened word endings and count what the poet counted.
- If a line is one syllable heavy, check word endings before word choices; a natural clip may fix it.
Try it yourself
Write a poem in a grandparent's speaking voice in which at least five words are clipped at the end, spelling the clippings consistently, and let the shortened words carry the poem's rhythm and its tenderness.
Questions
What is the difference between apocope and elision?
Apocope cuts a sound or syllable from the end of a word, as in 'ope' for open. Elision blends or omits sounds within a word or between words, as in 'th'expanse'. Both shorten lines; they just cut in different places.
Is apocope still used in modern poetry?
Yes, but in modern dress. Archaic forms like 'e'en' have retired, while informal clippings such as 'gonna' and 'tellin'' perform the same metrical work in contemporary and spoken-word poems.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.