Caesuras

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A pause or break within a line of verse, creating a rhythmic division
2. A notable interruption in a syntactic structure, allowing for expressive emphasis
3. A reflective moment in poetry that enhances meaning through silence or separation

Etymology: Poets have long used the caesura as a deliberate pause in the middle of a line, and the name for it began as a plain description of cutting. Latin "caesūra" meant "cutting" or "hewing," and it came from "caesus," the past participle of "caedō," meaning "to cut down" or "to hew." The metaphor is physical: a line of verse was imagined as a piece of material with a gap or break struck into it. Because the word is a Latin noun built on a verb of cutting, its English use kept that sense of a clean break. The plural "caesuras" is simply the ordinary English plural of this Latin-derived noun, so it refers to several such breaks, whether in a poem, a sentence, or a line of prose.

Synonyms: pauses, breaks