APHÆRESIS, in grammar, a figure by which a letter or syllable is cut off from the beginning of a word. Thus ciconia by aphæresis, is written contia; contemporæ, temnere; omiteræ, mitteræ, &c.

A like retrenchment at the end of a word is called apocope.

APHÆRESIS, in medicine, denotes a necessary taking away or removal of something that is noxious.—In surgery, it signifies an operation whereby something superfluous is taken away.

APHANES: A genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the tetrandria clasps of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 35th order, Sinticeae. The essential characters are these: The calyx is divided into eight parts; there is no corolla; the seeds are two, and naked. There is only one species, the arvensis or penley-piert, a native of Britain. It is extremely common in corn-fields. The stalks rise five or six together; they are three inches long, round, hairy, and procumbent: the leaves stand very thick upon them, and are roundish, but divided, as it were, into three parts, and those deeply serrated at their edges. The flowers come out in a double series, arranged all along the branches, and are of a greenish-white, and the whole plant is of a greyish or whitish-green colour.