diff --git a/src/joystick/linux/SDL_sysjoystick.c b/src/joystick/linux/SDL_sysjoystick.c
index 339d9a803..e5192be8f 100644
--- a/src/joystick/linux/SDL_sysjoystick.c
+++ b/src/joystick/linux/SDL_sysjoystick.c
@@ -59,6 +59,11 @@
 #include <sys/types.h>
 #include <unistd.h>
 
+/* This isn't defined in older Linux kernel headers */
+#ifndef SYN_DROPPED
+#define SYN_DROPPED 3
+#endif
+
 /* we never link directly to libudev. */
 /* !!! FIXME: can we generalize this? ALSA, etc, do the same things. */
 static const char *udev_library = "libudev.so.0";