transitive verb syncopated -·pat′ed, syncopating -·pat′·ing

1. to shorten (a word) by syncope
2. Music
   1. to shift (the regular accent) as by beginning a tone on an unaccented beat and continuing it through the next accented beat, or on the last half of a beat and continuing it through the first half of the following beat
   2. to use such shifted accents in (a musical composition, passage, rhythmic pattern, etc.)

Etymology: < ML syncopatus, pp. of syncopare, to cut short < LL, to swoon < syncope: see syncope