Editing Trisyllabic laxing (section)

{{short description|Historic vowel shift}}
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'''Trisyllabic laxing''', or '''trisyllabic shortening''', is any of three processes in [[English language|English]] in which tense vowels (long vowels or [[diphthong]]s) become lax (short [[monophthong]]s) if they are followed by two or more syllables, at least the first of which is unstressed, for example, ''grateful'' vs ''gratitude'', ''profound'' vs ''profundity''.

By a different process, laxing is also found in disyllabic and monosyllabic words, for example, ''shade'' vs ''shadow'', ''lose'' vs ''lost''.