syncope

1. Grammar. The shortening of a word by omission of a sound, letter, or syllable from the middle of the word; for example, bos'n for boatswain.
2. Pathology. A brief loss of consciousness caused by a temporary deficiency of oxygen in the brain; a swoon. See synonyms at blackout.

[Middle English sincopis, from sincopene, from Late Latin syncopēn, accusative of syncopē, from Greek sunkopē, from sunkoptein, to cut short : sun-, syn- + koptein, to strike.]

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The technical term for fainting. The immediate cause of loss of consciousness is failure of oxygen supply to the brain, because of failure of adequate blood flow, due in turn to a severe fall in blood pressure. Syncope usually refers to a ‘vaso-vagal’ episode, in which the heart is slowed by parasympathetic stimulation (via the vagus nerves), perhaps as a result of fear or disgust, and the blood pressure falls, causing first faintness and then loss of consciousness. Standing or sitting still for a long time can also contribute — gravity tends to ‘pool’ blood in the legs, causing inadequate return to the heart. In quite different circumstances, a person may ‘pass out’ due to blood loss, again because of a fall in blood pressure, but in this instance the heart rate is fast. Fainting, with a slow heart rate, occurs also with heart block

— Stuart Judge

See fainting; shock.

noun

A temporary loss of consciousness: blackout, faint, swoon. See awareness/unawareness.

Swooning or fainting; temporary suspension of consciousness caused by cerebral anemia. See also shock.

syncope [sink‐ŏ‐pi], a kind of verbal contraction by which a letter or syllable is omitted from within a word (rather than from the beginning or end of the word, as in elision). Obvious cases are heav'n for ‘heaven’ and o'er for ‘over’; but the term also covers the omission of sounds without indication in the spelling (e.g. the word extraordinary, commonly pronounced as four or five syllables instead of six). The device is especially common in syllabic and accentual‐syllabic verse, where it keeps the word within the metrical scheme.

Adjective: syncopal or syncopic.

Loss of consciousness due to an insufficient blood supply to the brain. Syncope may occur in otherwise healthy people because of emotional shock, overheating, or because of a sudden reduction in blood pressure on standing up quickly (see orthostatic hypotension). However, it may also be due to severe injury or loss of blood. Syncope on exercise is a classical warning of severe heart disease and may indicate a low fixed cardiac output that cannot increase to compensate adequately for the increased demands of oxygen during exercise. Syncope can occur in normal, fit athletes after exertion due to pooling of blood in the legs.

A temporary suspension of consciousness due to cerebral anemia; fainting.

• cardiac s. — sudden loss of consciousness due to cerebral anemia caused by ventricular asystole, extreme bradycardia or ventricular fibrillation.
• drug-induced s. — may result from abnormalities of cardiac rhythm, caused by treatment with digitalis, and hypotension caused by drugs such as diuretics, promazine and phenothiazine tranquilizers, and peripheral vasodilating agents.
• laryngeal s. — tussive syncope.
• Stokes–Adams s. — see stokes–adams disease.
• swallow s. — syncope associated with swallowing, a disorder of atrioventricular conduction mediated by the vagus nerve.
• tussive s. — brief loss of consciousness associated with paroxysms of coughing.
• vasovagal s. — see vasovagal attack.

A type of elision in which a word is contracted by removing one or more letters or syllables from the middle, as ne'er for never, or fo'c'sle for forecastle.

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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Syncope.

Syncope may refer to one of the following:

• Syncope (medicine), loss of consciousness
• Vasovagal episode, a common form of fainting
• Syncope (phonetics), the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word especially the loss of an unstressed vowel
• Syncopation a musical effect caused by a syncope, missed beat or off-the-beat stress.
• Syncope (genus) a genus of microhylidae frogs
• Syncope (album), an album by aggrotech band Tactical Sekt

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