Meaning

noun a spontaneous loss of consciousness caused by insufficient blood to the brain

noun (phonology) the loss of sounds from within a word (as in `fo'c'sle' for `forecastle')

originLearned borrowing from Late Latin syncopē, from Ancient Greek συγκοπή (sunkopḗ), from συγκόπτω (sunkóptō, “cut up”) + -η (-ē, nominalization suffix), from σύν (sún, “beside, with”) + κόπτω (kóptō, “strike, cut off”). Partly continues the (near-)doublets syncopis and sincopin, both from the Old French sincopin (“faintness”) (itself from Late Latin accusative syncopen), with the pathological…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0