Catachresis extends language beyond customary usage by applying a word, image, or metaphor where it does not conventionally belong. It may involve a mixed metaphor, an impossible comparison, or a borrowed term used because no exact one exists. In poetry, this apparent misuse can be highly expressive: it makes familiar language strange and gives form to experiences that seem irrational, extreme, or inarticulate. Poets employ catachresis to unsettle habitual perception, intensify imagery, and suggest that conventional vocabulary is insufficient for grief, desire, trauma, wonder, or imaginative transformation.

Catachresis creates productive strain by applying language where it does not conventionally fit, as in a “broken voice” or an image that joins incompatible realms. It can make familiar perception strange and express experiences ordinary diction cannot contain. Distinguish deliberate catachresis from an accidental mixed metaphor by asking whether the tension enriches the poem.