Definition of "syncopate" []

• Grammar To shorten (a word) by syncope. (verb-transitive)
• Music To modify (rhythm) by syncopation. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Every ragtime or jazz enthusiast knows that when you syncopate from the Greek for “cut short”, you begin a note on a weak beat in the bar, sustaining it into the accented part, thereby shifting the accent."
• "All syncopate smartly, but the big surprise is Ken Peplowski's clarinet, which adds a swinging blue coolness to the festive heat, particularly on "Sleigh Ride" and "Winter Wonderland.""
• "Shifts in density created by clusters of strokes now more open, now more closed animate and syncopate the upper regions, like variations in the density of a canopy of trees with different habits of growth."