Syncopated describes music whose rhythm pushes against the beat. In a normal bar you feel a steady strong-weak, strong-weak, and the important notes land on the strong beats. In syncopated music the notes land on the weak beats instead, or just before or after where you expect them — so the music tugs at you and makes you want to move. Jazz, ragtime, funk, reggae and most pop rhythms are syncopated; a school march or a nursery song usually is not. It is a describing word for the music, not for a person: you can say 'a syncopated rhythm', 'a syncopated beat', 'a heavily syncopated bassline'. Outside music it is rare, though a writer may borrow it for anything with an off-balance, jumpy pattern — 'the syncopated tapping of rain'. That use is a stretch on purpose, and it sounds literary.

切分的（節奏重音落在弱拍上）；syncopated rhythm 就是台灣音樂課說的「切分音節奏」。