lanceolate

Seven spellings are filed under lanceolate, and almost all of them go wrong in the same stretch: the two syllables between the c and the final t. That is the part nobody actually pronounces.

A blade several times longer than broad, widest below the middle and tapering to a point, like the head of a lance. Willow leaves are the example every key uses.

Latin lanceolatus, from lanceola, a small lance. The whole of that diminutive is still sitting in the English spelling as the -eol- in the middle, and none of it survives in the saying. Four syllables go past at speed, two of them carry any weight, and the letters in between are a matter of faith.