syncope
nounAU, CA, US, UK /ˈsɪŋ.kə.pi/
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin syncopē, from Ancient Greek συγκοπή (sunkopḗ), from συγκόπτω (sunkóptō, “cut up”) + -η (-ē, nominalization suffix), from σύν (sún, “beside, with”) + κόπτω (kóptō, “strike, cut off”). Partly continues the (near-)doublets syncopis and sincopin, both from the Old French sincopin (“faintness”) (itself from Late Latin accusative syncopen), with the pathological meaning "a loss of consciousness accompanied by a weak pulse", attested from the fifteenth century. Usage in the form syncope, with the phonological meaning "contraction of a word by omission of middle sounds or letters" attested from the 1520s. Syncopis and sincopin were "re-Latinized" to the form syncope in English in the sixteenth century. The musical usage first occurs after the 1660s, following the musical usage of syncopation and syncopate.
Human sciences, Linguistics, Phonology, Prosody, Sciences The elision or loss of a sound from the interior of a word, especially of a vowel sound with loss of a syllable.
- […]; on the contrary, all syllables subject in the same way to elision, apocope, syncope, and slurring must have the same degree of stress (i.e. they must be alike unaccented) whether preceded by short or by long root-syllables.1910, Jakob Schipper, A History of English Versification:
- Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of semi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation.1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial:
- Schneider, the father of rhinology, mentions a woman in whom the odor of orange-flowers produced syncope.1896, George M. Gould, Walter Lytle Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine:
1 more example
- […]the rapidly-whitening face, the miserable fixed smile, meant a syncope within the next few bars.1973, Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise:
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music A missed beat or off-beat stress in music resulting in syncopation.
- She was a volatile creature, full of mischievous surprise: at their first music practice, after playing over some hymns on the pipe-organ, she burst into jazz, filling the quiet grove with the clamorous syncope of Paddy-Paws, a favourite song that summer.1922, Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins:
- Derived terms
- micturition syncope, nonsyncopated, post-micturition syncope, syncopal, syncopate, syncopation, syncopic, syncopist, syncopize, unsyncopated