Construct · 1 fields · 2 citations

catachresis: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a single construct in rhetoric Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
catachresis1 CONSTRUCTCatachresisQUINTILIAN · ABUSIO

A single standalone construct; nearby constructs are located against it in the Collider. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

Rhetoric

A word strained or misapplied for want of a proper one

In rhetoric catachresis (Latin abusio) is the strained or seemingly improper use of a word, either because no literal term exists, as in the "leg" of a table or the "mouth" of a river, or as a deliberately harsh or mixed figure that pushes a metaphor past its fit. Quintilian's The orator's education treats it as the pressing of a nearest available word into a gap in the vocabulary, and Lanham's A handlist of rhetorical terms records both the necessary and the extravagant meanings. The referent is a figure of forced or borrowed naming, identified by the mismatch between a word and the thing it is made to cover.[1][2]

Unit
A single instance of a word strained beyond or against its proper meaning
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Identified by detecting a term applied where no literal word exists or where its usual meaning is deliberately violated

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Nearby constructs

metaphor3 fields · 3 citationsinvariant · one construct, three systemstrope3 fields · 5 citationsjingle · one word, three constructscover2 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, two constructs

References

  1. Quintilian. (2001). The orator's education (D. A. Russell, Ed. & Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published ca. 95 CE) ISBN 9780674995918
  2. Lanham, R. A. (1991). A handlist of rhetorical terms (2nd ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520076693

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