syncope

plural syncopes · alternative obsolete syncopé

1. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe elision or loss of a sound from the interior of a word, especially of a vowel sound with loss of a syllable.

   […]; on the contrary, all syllables subject in the same way to elision, apocope, syncope, and slurring must have the same degree of stress (i.e. they must be alike unaccented) whether preceded by short or by long root-syllables.

   1910, Jakob Schipper, A History of English Versification

   Antonyms: epenthesis

2. countableuncountablebiologyA loss of consciousness when fainting.

   […]the rapidly-whitening face, the miserable fixed smile, meant a syncope within the next few bars.

   1973, Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise

   2 more examples

   Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of semi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation.

   1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial

   Schneider, the father of rhinology, mentions a woman in whom the odor of orange-flowers produced syncope.

   1896, George M. Gould, Walter Lytle Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine

   Synonyms: swoon, faint, fainting, lipothymia

3. countableuncountableentertainmentA missed beat or off-beat stress in music resulting in syncopation.

   She was a volatile creature, full of mischievous surprise: at their first music practice, after playing over some hymns on the pipe-organ, she burst into jazz, filling the quiet grove with the clamorous syncope of Paddy-Paws, a favourite song that summer.

   1922, Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins