syncopation
Music. a shifting of the normal accent, usually by stressing the normally unaccented beats.
something, as a rhythm or a passage of music, that is syncopated.
Also called counterpoint, counterpoint rhythm. Prosody. the use of rhetorical stress at variance with the metrical stress of a line of verse, as the stress on and and of in Come praise Colonus' horses and come praise/The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies.
Grammar. syncope.
Origin of syncopation
1Other words from syncopation
- non·syn·co·pa·tion, noun
Words Nearby syncopation
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use syncopation in a sentence
Instead, the Meters strutted, turning down the volume and finding unlikely, hip-turning melodies in complex syncopations.
Leo Nocentelli’s long-lost folk-funk album sees the light of day, 50 years later | John Lingan | November 19, 2021 | Washington PostYou would need to go back to the 19th century to find rhythms in popular music with so little syncopation.
The result is an effect of syncopation which is peculiarly forceful.
How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. | Henry Edward KrehbielThe purpose of the time step is to get the syncopation into the dancing step, and establish the "tempo" of the dance.
The Art of Stage Dancing | Ned WayburnHe moved slowly, painfully, one leg striking the pavement in syncopation, for it was sadly crippled by disease.
Melomaniacs | James Huneker
The rhythm may be said to be a sort of spite-rhythm, very decisive in most cases, but most of the time in syncopation.
Franz Liszt | James HunekerSuggested by the poster commending a recent Revue as "the last word in syncopation."
British Dictionary definitions for syncopation
/ (ˌsɪŋkəˈpeɪʃən) /
music
the displacement of the usual rhythmic accent away from a strong beat onto a weak beat
a note, beat, rhythm, etc, produced by syncopation
another word for syncope (def. 2)
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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