[sing-kuh-pey-shuh
n, sin-] 
| 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. Prosody. 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. | Grammar. syncope. |
syn·co·pa·tion (sĭng'kə-pā'shən, sĭn'-)  (click for larger image in new window) n.
|
syncopation
in music, the displacement of regular accents associated with given metrical patterns, resulting in a disruption of the listener's expectations and the arousal of a desire for the reestablishment of metric normality; hence the characteristic "forward drive" of highly syncopated music. Syncopation may be effected by accenting normally weak beats in a measure, by resting on a normal accented beat, or by tying over a note to the next measure
Learn more about syncopation with a free trial on Britannica.com.