syncope
English · Français · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
syncope
- /ˈsɪŋ.kə.pi/ Australia, Canada, US
Where it comes from
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.
noun syncopes · syncopé
-
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.
Opposite: epenthesis
-
A loss of consciousness when fainting.
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 surrounde
Similar: swoon, faint, fainting, lipothymia
- 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.
Translations
Every language
noun absence of a sound
| Español | síncopa, síncope |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | 語中音消失 gochūon shōshitsu |
| 中文 | 中略語 /中略语 zhōnglüèyǔ |
| Português | síncope |
| Français | syncope |
| Deutsch | Synkope |
| Ελληνικά | συγκοπή sygkopí |
| Русский | синко́па sinkópa |
| Tiếng Việt | rụng âm |
Talk about this word "syncope." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/syncope. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. syncope. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/syncope "syncope." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/syncope.Cite this
@misc{syncope_2026,
title = {syncope},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/syncope},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
