Home › Glossary › Letter C

Catachresis verse

Device
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Verse that uses deliberately strained, paradoxical, or mixed metaphors to create rhetorical tension, surprise, or conceptual dissonance.

Detailed Definition
Catachresis verse employs deliberate misapplication of words or strained metaphors (catachresis) to express the inexpressible or evoke dissonance; it creates startling, often surreal imagery by forcing incompatible terms together, as in “blind mouths” (Milton).
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s “The eye of heaven shines so dim” (misapplies “eye” to sun); Donne’s “Busy old fool, unruly sun” (personifies sun unnaturally); Plath’s “The moon is my mother” (forced maternal metaphor); Modern: “My phone is a jealous lover” (technological catachresis)
Additional Notes
Entire poem built on sustained catachresis or intentional misuse of terms for defamiliarization. Extends single device to structural principle. Related to metaphysical conceit but more linguistically transgressive.
Also Known As
mixed metaphor verse strained imagery
Skip to main content