syncopation
/ˌsɪŋ.kəˈpeɪ.ʃən/ noun
Forms syncopations
- noun (linguistics, phonology) The contraction of a word by means of loss or omission of sounds or syllables in the middle thereof.
- noun (music) The quality of a rhythm being somehow unexpected, in that it deviates from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak beats in a meter.
Synonyms
Etymology
From syncopate + -ion. The phonological sense was first attested in English in the 1530's, the musical sense in the 1590's.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The act of syncopating; the contraction of a word by taking one or more letters or syllables from the middle; syncope.
- noun The act of syncopating; a peculiar figure of rhythm, or rhythmical alteration, which consists in welding into one tone the second half of one beat with the first half of the beat which follows.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “syncopation”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details