Kataklasis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rhetorical device that involves a deliberate use of a word or phrase in a manner that conveys a different meaning than its usual sense
2. The act of employing a term in a way that either alters its intended interpretation or introduces an unexpected twist to its expected context
3. A figurative use of language where a word's meaning is intentionally twisted or redirected to create irony or humor

Etymology: Despite the definition you supplied, "kataklasis" is not a rhetorical term. It is a geological one, meaning the crushing and fracturing of rock under mechanical stress, and it is built from Ancient Greek "kata," meaning "down," and "klasis," meaning "breaking," from the verb "klaein." The rhetorical device you describe, using a word in an unusual or strained sense, is called catachresis. That term comes from Greek "katachresis," "misuse," from "kata" plus "chresis," "use," and Greek rhetoricians applied it to stretched figurative uses such as "a foot of a mountain." The geological sense was formed in modern scientific German as "Kataklase" and carried into English petrology, where it describes a rock whose grains have been ground and broken without melting. Because it was coined from classical roots rather than inherited from Greek usage, the ancient Greeks would not have recognised it as a technical term for rock deformation.

Synonyms: rock fragmentation, cataclasis