Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics.
- noun A pause or interruption, as in conversation.
- noun 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.
- noun Music A pause or breathing at a point of rhythmic division in a melody.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun etc. See cesura, cesural, etc.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A metrical break in a verse, occurring in the middle of a foot and commonly near the middle of the verse; a sense pause in the middle of a foot. Also, a long syllable on which the cæsural accent rests, or which is used as a foot.
- noun a pause or interruption (as in a conversation).
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
pause orinterruption in apoem ,music , building or other work of art. - noun In Classical
prosody , using two words to divide ametrical foot .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a break or pause (usually for sense) in the middle of a verse line
- noun a pause or interruption (as in a conversation)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Among occasional variations of the normal strophe as here described may be mentioned the following: The end-rhyme is in a few instances feminine instead of masculine; while on the other hand the ending of the first half-lines is occasionally masculine instead of feminine, that is, the caesura is not "ringing."
The Nibelungenlied Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original George Henry Needler 1914
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Well, there seems to be an intergalactic-sized caesura.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: Selling Mother's Louis Vuittons on eBay Elizabeth Boleman-Herring 2011
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Well, there seems to be an intergalactic-sized caesura.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: Selling Mother's Louis Vuittons on eBay Elizabeth Boleman-Herring 2011
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Well, there seems to be an intergalactic-sized caesura.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: Selling Mother's Louis Vuittons on eBay Elizabeth Boleman-Herring 2011
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Well, there seems to be an intergalactic-sized caesura.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: Selling Mother's Louis Vuittons on eBay Elizabeth Boleman-Herring 2011
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"Labor Day," from The Triumph of Achilles, is occasion only to remember her father's death a year ago, which the poet processes conclusively with this profound insight about the length of a human life: "Not a sentence, but a breath, a caesura."
Anis Shivani: Philip Levine and Other Mediocrities: What it Takes to Ascend to the Poet Laureateship Anis Shivani 2011
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Still, he remembers one space offering a welcome caesura from the ormolu and swag: the Blue Room, which the Count used as his personal sitting area.
Museum Quality Jen Renzi 2011
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Well, there seems to be an intergalactic-sized caesura.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: Selling Mother's Louis Vuittons on eBay Elizabeth Boleman-Herring 2011
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"Labor Day," from The Triumph of Achilles, is occasion only to remember her father's death a year ago, which the poet processes conclusively with this profound insight about the length of a human life: "Not a sentence, but a breath, a caesura."
Anis Shivani: Philip Levine and Other Mediocrities: What it Takes to Ascend to the Poet Laureateship Anis Shivani 2011
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Well, there seems to be an intergalactic-sized caesura.
Elizabeth Boleman-Herring: Selling Mother's Louis Vuittons on eBay Elizabeth Boleman-Herring 2011
aarongetsrich commented on the word caesura
1: in modern prosody : a usually rhetorical break in the flow of sound in the middle of a line of verse
2: Greek & Latin prosody : a break in the flow of sound in a verse caused by the ending of a word within a foot
3: break, interruption
4: a pause marking a rhythmic point of division in a melody
"The words are normal Law & Order words, but you wouldn't know it: Goldblum turns dialogue inside-out with stylized speech and a range of pregnant pauses, looping his eyes around the room with each caesura as if tracking an imagined hummingbird."
--Slate
June 30, 2009