Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Grammar The shortening of a word by omission of a sound, letter, or syllable from the middle of the word; for example, bos'n for boatswain.
  • noun Medicine A brief loss of consciousness caused by inadequate blood flow to the brain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The contraction of a word by elision; an elision or retrenchment of one or more letters or a syllable from the middle of a word, as in ne'er for never. See also syncopation, syncopate. Compare apocope.
  • noun In medicine, loss of consciousness from fall of blood-pressure and consequent cerebral anemia; fainting. It may be induced by cardiac weakness or inhibition, hemorrhage, or probably visceral vasomotor relaxation.
  • noun A sudden pause or cessation; a suspension; temporary stop or inability to go on.
  • noun In music: Same as syncopation.
  • noun The combination of two voice-parts so that two or more tones in one coincide with a single tone in the other; simple figuration.
  • noun In ancient prosody, omission, or apparent omission, of an arsis in the interior of a line.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Gram.) An elision or retrenchment of one or more letters or syllables from the middle of a word; as, ne'er for never, ev'ry for every.
  • noun (Mus.) Same as Syncopation.
  • noun (Med.) A fainting, or swooning. See Fainting.
  • noun rare A pause or cessation; suspension.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A loss of consciousness when someone faints, a swoon.
  • noun prosody A missing sound from the interior of a word, for example by changing cannot to can't or the pronunciation of placenames in -cester (e.g. Leicester) as -ster.
  • noun A missed beat or off-beat stress in music resulting in syncopation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (phonology) the loss of sounds from within a word (as in `fo'c'sle' for `forecastle')
  • noun a spontaneous loss of consciousness caused by insufficient blood to the brain

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English sincopis, from sincopene, from Late Latin syncopēn, accusative of syncopē, from Greek sunkopē, from sunkoptein, to cut short : sun-, syn- + koptein, to strike.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Late Latin syncope, from Ancient Greek συγκοπή (sunkopē), from σύν (sin) + κόπτω (koptein, "strike, cut off").

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Examples

  • Near-syncope is light-headedness due to the same cause.

    Cardiac terms and definitions 2010

  • For musicians, syncope is a rhythmic form that subverts the order of stress in the bar and puts stress on what is regularly unstressed.

    Ildiko Csengei 2008

  • In a 1949 article in the New Yorker (now the Nyawka), John Davenport commented on “Slurvian,” the language of what linguists call syncope (“SING-kuh-pee”).

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • In a 1949 article in the New Yorker (now the Nyawka), John Davenport commented on “Slurvian,” the language of what linguists call syncope (“SING-kuh-pee”).

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

  • The above is a classic presentation of syncope, which is defined as a transient, self-correcting loss of responsiveness and postural tone.

    EMSResponder.com: Top EMS News 2009

  • Some symptoms St. Jude cited include a sudden loss of consciousness called syncope, palpitations and shortness of breath.

    Minneapolis Business News - Local Minneapolis News | The Minneapolis / St Paul Business Journal 2008

  • In the medical terminology of the period, fainting, swooning, and various states that involve the loss of sensation or consciousness are referred to by the technical terms "syncope" and "lipothymy" (or lypothymia).

    Ildiko Csengei 2008

  • If we assume these arose from some kind of syncope on the second syllable then we should expects all manner of internal clusters, yet only a few combinations are found.

    Laryngeal abuse - Phonemes caught in the reconstructive crossfire 2008

  • Death, he said, was the result of "syncope," or a dramatic drop in blood pressure.

    Portrait of a Killer Cornwell, Patricia 1930

  • But in the expression of her countenance there was no character of suffering or distress; on the contrary, a wondrous serenity, that made her beauty more beauteous, her very youthfulness younger; and when this spurious or partial kind of syncope passed, she recovered at once without effort, without acknowledging that she had felt faint or unwell, but rather with a sense of recruited vitality, as the weary obtain from a sleep.

    A Strange Story — Volume 02 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

Comments

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  • ‘T is pity, but e’en your expanded examples have naught but pathological applications, the grammar’s omitted.

    October 1, 2009

  • Nurse Pruitt's first sip tastes like hope

    The next speeds her slide down that slope.

    As each new infusion

    Breeds greater confusion

    She ends in a fuddled syncope.

    See pass out, faint, swoon, lipothymy.

    January 31, 2016