| crasis |
| Definition - The contracting of two vowels into either one long vowel or a diphthong.
Notes: 1. Usually, it involves combining a vowel that is at the end of a word with the one that starts the next word. 2. The term also denotes the internal contracting of Latin words (e.g., the creation of nil from nihil). |
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Etymology - The word derives from the Greek krasis, mixture. |
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Oxford English Dictionary - Its first citation is from 1833: "Avoiding the hiatus…(1) by elision with the apostrophe; and (2) by contracting both syllables into one compound sound, or Crasis." (E. Robinson tr. Buttmann's Larger Grk. Gram. 60) |