v. [f. late L. syncopāt-, pa. ppl. stem of syncopāre to affect with syncope, f. syncopē SYNOPE.]
1. Gram. trans. To cut short or contract (a word) by omitting one or more syllables or letters in the middle; also pass. to be produced by syncopation.
1605. Camden, Rem., Surnames, 130. The tyran Time which hath swallowed many names, hath also in vse of speach, changed more by contracting, syncopating, curtelling, and mollifying them.
1848. Veitch, Grk. Verbs Irreg. & Defect., s.v. θνήσκω, It is said that τεθνεώς is never syncopated τεθνώς.
1857. Jos. Currie, Notes to Horace, Sat., I. ii. 113. Soldo is syncopated for solido.
1861. Hadley, Grk. Gram. (1884), 47. Δημήτηρ … syncopates all the oblique cases.
2. Mus. a. trans. To begin (a note) on an unaccented part of the bar and sustain it into the accented part; to introduce syncopation into (a passage). b. intr. To be marked by syncopation.
[1667, 1752: see SYNCOPATED 2.]
1776. Burney, Hist. Mus., I. vii. 103. [It] disturbs the metre, and syncopates the music.
1793. Encycl. Brit. (1797), XII. 538, note. When the treble syncopates in descending diatonically.
3. fig. or allusively.
1904. Blackburn, Rich. Hartley, ii. 17. A succession of shrill yells, and oaths…, syncopated by the swish of the sjambok.
1908. ‘Ian Hay,’ Right Stuff, xi. A retired Admiral…, whose forty years’ official connection with Britannia’s realm betrayed itself in a nautical roll, syncopated by gout.
