"Cute" is Aphetic

       While looking for something else entirely in the dictionary today (of course), I came across the abbreviation "aphet.", had to look it up, found "aphetic" applied to words like "cute," which struck me as serendipitous since yesterday the word "cuter" appeared in my post, and I knew this had to be my post for today.

       Actually aphetic is a linguistic term, an adjective from the Greek meaning "letting go."  Vowels at the beginning of words tend to be lost over time.  This is what happened to the word "acute" in the sense "keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd," also the original meaning of "cute."  Gradually cute became a term of approval for someone with those qualities, and thence to its own sense of "attractive, fetching."

       Cute not only "let go" of a vowel, but its own original meaning!