/sing'keuh pay"sheuhn, sin'-/ , n.
1. Music. a shifting of the normal accent, usually by stressing the normally unaccented beats.
2. something, as a rhythm or a passage of music, that is syncopated.
3. Also called counterpoint, counterpoint rhythm . Pros. the use of rhetorical stress at variance with the metrical stress of a line of verse, as the stress on and and of in Come praise Colonus' horses and come praise/The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies.
4. Gram. syncope.
[ 1525-35; syncopation- (s. of syncopatio ), equiv. to LL syncopat ( us ) (see SYNCOPATE) + -ion- -ION ]