syncopation
Americannoun
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Music. a shifting of the normal accent, usually by stressing the normally unaccented beats.
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something, as a rhythm or a passage of music, that is syncopated.
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Also called counterpoint rhythm, counterpoint. 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.
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Grammar. syncope.
noun
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music
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the displacement of the usual rhythmic accent away from a strong beat onto a weak beat
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a note, beat, rhythm, etc, produced by syncopation
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another word for syncope
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of syncopation
1525–35; < Medieval Latin syncopātiōn- (stem of syncopātiō ), equivalent to Late Latin syncopāt ( us ) ( see syncopate) + -iōn- -ion
Explanation
If no one's dancing at the school dance, it might be time to ask the DJ to play some music with more syncopation, or a strong, distinct rhythm that makes you want to move. Jazz is the musical genre best known for syncopation, using rhythm and beats in unexpected ways to make exciting, finger-snapping music. Syncopation has been around for a lot longer than that, though — it pops up in works by Bach and Mozart, for example.
Vocabulary lists containing syncopation
Curtain Call: Dance and Theater Terms
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Music - Middle School
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Music - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Brazilian syncopation snakes through Ted Tetzlaff’s shadowy lighting, giving the scene a unique tension.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
Their sound differed from the melody-rich music of Bob Marley, with a heavier emphasis on the beat - including the pioneering "rockers" rhythm, which introduced more syncopation and energy to the music.
From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2026
“The thing is, we're just not sure how she thinks about or understands things like meter, syncopation or anything like that.”
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2025
The production is crystal clear, with rumbling bass, percolating syncopation and lovely acoustic guitars in the bridge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2024
The reason it’s called synco-pa is that it is short for the word syncopation, which means to have a rhythm that is ‘off-beat’ or doesn’t fall right on the beats of a song.”
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
