syncope
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- syncopé (obsolete)
EtymologyEdit
Late Latin syncope, from Ancient Greek συγκοπή (sunkopḗ), from σύν (sún, “beside, with”) + κόπτω (kóptō, “strike, cut off”).
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
syncope (countable and uncountable, plural syncopes)
- (linguistics, phonology, prosody) The loss or elision of a sound, from the interior of a word, especially of a vowel sound with loss of a syllable. For example, the change of cannot to can't, never to ne'er, Latin calidus to caldus, or the pronunciation of the -cester ending in placenames as -ster (for example, Leicester pronounced Leister or Lester, and Worcester pronounced Wooster).
- Antonym: epenthesis
- (pathology) A loss of consciousness when someone faints, a swoon.
- 1973 Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise
- the rapidly-whitening face, the miserable fixed smile, meant a syncope within the next few bars.
- 1973 Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise
- (music) A missed beat or off-beat stress in music resulting in syncopation.
Usage notesEdit
Usage in the form syncope, with the phonological meaning "contraction of a word by omission of middle sounds or letters" attested from the 1520's. Doublets of said syncope with the form 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. Said syncopis/sincopin was "relatinized" to the form syncope in English in the sixteenth century, after the linguistic use of that word was already in use. The musical usage first occurs after the 1660's, following the musical usage of syncopation and syncopate.
SynonymsEdit
- (swoon): faint, fainting, lipothymia
HypernymsEdit
- (prosody): metaplasm
Derived termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
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Further readingEdit
- syncope in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- syncope in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
DutchEdit
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed from Ancient Greek συγκοπή (sunkopḗ).
NounEdit
syncope f (plural syncopes, diminutive syncopetje n)
- (linguistics, phonology, prosody) The loss or elision of a sound from the interior of a word (for example the change of Dutch veder in veer "feather"); syncope
- (pathology) A loss of consciousness when someone faints, a swoon; syncope
- (music) A missed beat or off-beat stress in music resulting in syncopation; syncope
FrenchEdit
EtymologyEdit
Borrowed from Ancient Greek συγκοπή (sunkopḗ).
PronunciationEdit
NounEdit
syncope f (plural syncopes)
Further readingEdit
- “syncope” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
PortugueseEdit
NounEdit
syncope f (plural syncopes)
- Obsolete spelling of síncope (used in Portugal until September 1911 and died out in Brazil during the 1920s).