:For the medical term, see fainting. For other uses, see syncope (disambiguation) In phonetics, syncope /ˈsɪŋ.kə.pi:/ (Greek syn- + kopein “to strike”) is the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word; especially, the loss of an unstressed vowel. Syncope as a historical sound change In historical phonetics, the term "syncope" is often but not always limited to the loss of an unstressed vowel: The loss of any sound Old English hláford… (More on Syncope)