Syncope is the elision of the vowel of an unstressed middle syllable. Syncope normally affects vowels in syllables immediately preceding or following the stressed syllable, i.e. pretonic or posttonic syllables.

Examples: German Handel -ung -> Handlung.
Yucatec tukul -ik -> tuklik.
Latin comite -> Italian conte.
Latin comparare -> Italian comprare.

In some traditions, the deletion of a consonant (ecthlipsis) is subsumed under the concept of syncope.

Syncope alternates with anaptyxis in the same context.