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Definition of Catachresis
1. Noun. Strained or paradoxical use of words either in error (as 'blatant' to mean 'flagrant') or deliberately (as in a mixed metaphor: 'blind mouths').
Definition of Catachresis
1. n. A figure by which one word is wrongly put for another, or by which a word is wrested from its true signification; as, "To take arms against a sea of troubles". Shak. "Her voice was but the shadow of a sound." Young.
Definition of Catachresis
1. Noun. A misuse of a word; an application of a term to something which it does not properly denote. ¹
2. Noun. (rhetoric) A misapplication or overextension of figurative or analogical description; a wrongly-applied metaphor or trope. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Definition of Catachresis
1. [n -CHRESES]
Lexicographical Neighbors of Catachresis
Literary usage of Catachresis
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society by Bibliographical Society (Great Britain) (1903)
"(S) Synecdoche generis, with instances of catachresis, hyperbole, allegoria.
Before entering on the detailed treatment of Figures, Butler gives a synopsis ..."
2. Rejected Addresses: Or, The New Theatrum Poetarum by James Smith, Horace Smith (1841)
"This journal was, at the period in question, rather remarkable for the use of
the figure called by the rhetoricians catachresis. The Bard of Avon may be ..."
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