Both halves of glaucous rewritten by ear
composedTwo of the word's problems answered at once, the vowel and the ending, in a single spelling.
heard asglocus
spelledglaucous
saidGLAW-kus
glaucous, with au in front and -ous at the end.
Five letters have become three and the word has lost every trace of where it came from. What is left, glocus, is a fair phonetic record and unsearchable.
The other five