iambic shortening

== English == === Noun === iambic shortening (countable and uncountable, plural iambic shortenings) (prosody) In Latin, the shortening of an etymologically long final vowel, in a two-syllable word where the first vowel is also short. It tended to persist in uninflected words like bene, but was levelled out in favour of inflectional regularity in other words.