Synaeresis, synaloepha

The contraction of two syllables into one, for metrical purposes, by changing two adjacent syllables into a diphthong. Paul Fussell gives as an example the first line of John Milton's Paradise Lost, "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit," in which "the ie in disobedience changes to what is called a y-glide, and the word becomes disobed-yence" (26). See also Elision.