syncopation

[sing-kuh-pey-shuh n, sin-]

noun

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

1525–35; < Medieval Latin syncopātiōn- (stem of syncopātiō), equivalent to Late Latin syncopāt(us) (see syncopate) + -iōn- -ion

Related formsnon·syn·co·pa·tion, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for syncopation

Historical Examples of syncopation

And over all the American jazz music boomed and whanged its syncopation.
Gigolo
Edna Ferber
One may do worse than compare it with the Syrian syncopation of and ' in Bion's Adonis.
Instigations
Ezra Pound
His heart beat with syncopation when he rose at the first note of music.
What Will People Say?
Rupert Hughes
Are you in favour of the establishment of a Ministry for the Control of Syncopation?
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919.
Various
The result is an effect of syncopation which is peculiarly forceful.
How to Listen to Music, 7th ed.
Henry Edward Krehbiel

British Dictionary definitions for syncopation

syncopation

noun

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

Word Origin and History for syncopation

1530s, "contraction of a word by omission of middle sounds," from Medieval Latin syncopationem (nominative syncopatio) "a shortening or contraction," from syncopare "to shorten," also "to faint away, to swoon," from Late Latin syncope (see syncope). Musical sense is attested from 1590s.