caesura

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Related to caesura: enjambment

cae·su·ra

also ce·su·ra (sĭ-zho͝or′ə, -zo͝or′ə)

n. pl. cae·su·ras or cae·su·rae (-zho͝or′ē, -zo͝or′ē) also ce·su·ras or ce·su·rae

1. A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics.

2. A pause or interruption, as in conversation: After another weighty caesura the senator resumed speaking.

3. In Latin and Greek prosody, a break in a line caused by the ending of a word within a foot, especially when this coincides with a sense division.

4. Music A pause or breathing at a point of rhythmic division in a melody.

[Latin caesūra, a cutting, from caesus, past participle of caedere, to cut off; see kaə-id- in Indo-European roots.]

cae·su′ral, cae·su′ric adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

caesura

(sɪˈzjʊərə)

n, pl -ras or -rae (-riː)

1. (Poetry) (in modern prosody) a pause, esp for sense, usually near the middle of a verse line. Usual symbol: ||

2. (Poetry) (in classical prosody) a break between words within a metrical foot, usually in the third or fourth foot of the line

[C16: from Latin, literally: a cutting, from caedere to cut]

caeˈsural, caeˈsuric adj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

cae•su•ra

or ce•su•ra

(sɪˈʒʊər ə, -ˈzʊər ə, sɪzˈyʊər ə)

n., pl. cae•su•ras or ce•su•ras, cae•su•rae or ce•su•rae (sɪˈʒʊər i, -ˈzʊər i, sɪzˈyʊər i)

1. a break or pause in a line of verse, marked in scansion by a double vertical line.

2. any pause or interruption.

[1550–60; < Latin]

cae•su′ral, cae•su′ric, adj.

caesura

A pause in a line, usually for sense, but forming part of the metrical foot.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun	1.	caesura - a pause or interruption (as in a conversation); "after an ominous caesura the preacher continued" pause, suspension, intermission, interruption, break - a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something
	2.	caesura - a break or pause (usually for sense) in the middle of a verse line prosody, inflection - the patterns of stress and intonation in a language

Translations

tauko

cezura

cesur

caesura

[sɪˈzjʊərə] N (caesuras or caesurae (pl)) [sɪˈzjʊəriː] → cesura f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

caesura

, (US) cesura

n → Zäsur f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

References in classic literature ?

There is also a break or caesura which in five-syllable verses falls after the second syllable and in seven-syllable verses after the fourth.

View in context

It was in some hundreds of verses, which I did my best to balance as Pope did, with a caesura falling in the middle of the line, and a neat antithesis at the end.

View in context

(HFF) announced $32 million in financing for Caesura, a newly completed, 123-unit residential building with ground-floor retail in Brooklyn's Cultural District.

Jonathan Rose replaces construction loan on eco-friendly Brooklyn apartment development

Caesura, and the Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, among other places.

Stimulated Economy

From there he pushes the music with intensity to a dramatic caesura; then the thread vanishes to be followed with echoes of the ghostly atmosphere created at the beginning of the adagio.

Windows in Time: Chamber Music for Horn and Strings by Mozart and Schuller. Bernhard Scully

The same white space can also provide a caesura: an interruption or break, a breath and pause.

THE SPACE BETWEEN: Spatial caesura within a poem

Almost every story in the collection ends on a gasping caesura, coming to a close just as the last heart-wrenching twist is revealed.

Tiny Shoes Dancing and Other Stories

A nine-year caesura separates Ito's early paintings from the arid, sunset-colored topography of Gorodiva, 1968, where her idiosyncratic interpretation of late Cubism dissolves into an austere landscape of ombre-style gradients and scallop-edged forms.

Miyoko Ito: ARTISTS SPACE

The more one attempts to capture memory and enunciate it, the more one is resigned to an endless task." Zaqtan writes in the caesura between memory and recollection, endlessly cataloging imperfectly rendered experience in the poems of this fine collection, capably rendered and introduced to English readers by Joudah (see WLT, March 2016, 31-36).

Ghassan Zaqtan. The Silence That Remains

Even, The Man Who Was Not my Grandfather, Caesura --Antwerp, 1938, Sudden Death--A Eulogy, An Absence of Jell-O, She Loves Me Not, Opting Out, Charming and Devoted, Livery, Our Incredible Shrinking Discourse, Divided Expectations.

Phoning Home Essays

Among his topics are Blumenberg in Davos: the Cassirer-Heidegger controversy reconsidered, confession infirmitatis or productive digression: iconic difference taken apart and put to good use in legal affairs, the Baroque caesura of history: Louis Marin mourning the revolution, the narrow thing within one word: the foreclosure of nature in post-Shakespearean worlds and times, and mirror effects in euphantasy land: the unholy alliance of selection and evolution.