Shakespeare frankly writes the word as a trisyllable,
Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave.
Milton restored the lost syllable, often eliding the final vowel,
as in
Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain.
Even with heavy consonants we have the early stress, as in 'industry'.
Greek words follow the same rules, as 'agony', 'melody'. Some words
of this class have under French influence been further abbreviated, as
'concord'.
Corresponding STEMS IN -IO keep the same rules. Perhaps the only
disyllable is 'study'; the shortening of a stressed _u_ shows its
immediate derivation from the old French _estudie_. Trisyllabic
examples are 'colloquy', 'ministry', 'perjury'. Many words of this
class have been further abbreviated in their passage through French.
Such are 'benefice', 'divorce', 'office', 'presage', 'suffrage',
'vestige', 'adverb', 'homicide', 'proverb'. The stress in 'div['o]rce'
is due to the long vowel and the two consonants. A few of these
words have been borrowed bodily from Latin, as 'odium', 'tedium',
'opprobrium'.
STEMS IN -DO AND -TO (-SO). These words lose the final Latin syllable
and keep the stress on the vowel which bore it in Latin. The stressed
vowel, except in _au_, _eu_, is short, even when, as in 'vivid',
'florid', it was long in classical Latin. This, of course, is in
accord with the English pronunciation of Latin. Examples are 'acid',
'tepid', 'rigid', 'horrid', 'humid', 'lurid ', 'absurd', 'tacit',
'digit', 'deposit', 'compact', 'complex', 'revise', 'response',
'acute'.
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