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syncopate

[sing-kuh-peyt, sin-] / ˈsɪŋ kəˌpeɪt, ˈsɪn- /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Most of the songs vamp through a handful of chords as Keys gives her voice room to leap, to curl, to muse, to syncopate; she has rarely sounded so jazzy and improvisatory.

From New York Times Dec. 10, 2021

Not many, but enough to start infecting celebrations with doubt, to break up the exact time, the exact place, to syncopate something that used to be whole.

From The New Yorker Nov. 2, 2019

During a show-pausing turn in “Mary Poppins Returns,” Lin-Manuel Miranda takes center stage to sing and syncopate, and the movie flickers to life.

From New York Times Dec. 18, 2018

From 1935 the itch to complicate and syncopate gets to him.

From Slate Dec. 18, 2010

For there the need for quick action, which in life tends to syncopate emotion, does not exist.

From The Principles of Aesthetics by Parker, Dewitt H.

“The way that he syncopates and phrases, if it’s not codified, then he escapes a dialogue about jazz piano history.”

From Washington Post Sep. 30, 2022

A lovely painting that syncopates rectangles of black, red and teal hangs here next to a larger weaving with the same geometric arrangement.

From New York Times Nov. 26, 2021

But when they’re outdoors, at least, the color syncopates the seams.

From New York Times Jun. 29, 2017

The theme again is "America" but it is mournful and bleeding now until the third movement, "1926," takes it up again and syncopates it.

From Time Magazine Archive

He retains the MacNooder eloquence and syncopates it, polishing his quips for quotation, studying his audience.

From Time Magazine Archive

The following “Lazy Daisy,” built around a loop of syncopated electronic percussion, is defined by its use of space.

From The Wall Street Journal Jun. 9, 2026

Standing in a line, they fall into syncopated steps, slowly coming together for a single breath and hunch.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 13, 2026

Each one’s momentary glow pulses alive and fades in syncopated rhythm with the drowsy croaks of bullfrogs.

From Salon May 10, 2024

He brought an ensemble to the elegant Appel Room theater, overlaying syncopated backbeats, heralding horn lines and tapestries of Rhodes and distorted guitar.

From New York Times Jan. 15, 2024

Music came in and out of my ears, a syncopated half song that was familiar and foreign at the same time.

From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago

A student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Eotvos composed “Angels” with speech morphing into song, syncopating percussion and electronic keyboards.

From Washington Times Jun. 9, 2017

Faced with Minnie Riperton’s kitschy, overblown “Give Me Time,” he comes up with a beautifully elliptical response, alternately swooning and syncopating, injecting a full minute of genuine pathos.

From Slate Dec. 22, 2016

Ragtime, the new music invented by black musicians, was shaking up the straightforward rhythms of the previous century and syncopating them irresistibly.

From The New Yorker Feb. 16, 2015

Ethel Waters has scarcely finished syncopating with Count Basic's Afric jazz band when Yehudi Menuhin steps forward to render Schubert's Ave Maria on his expensive violin.

From Time Magazine Archive

They lived precisely as the beasts in the jungle live—diversifying their periods of torpor with bursts of frantic vituperation and syncopating enjoyment.

From Command by McFee, William




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