catachresis

English

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catachresis

Learned borrowing from Latin catachrēsis, borrowed from Ancient Greek κατάχρησις (katákhrēsis, “misuse (of a word)”).

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catachresis (countable and uncountable, plural catachreses)

A misuse of a word; an application of a term to something which it does not properly denote.^[1]
1. (often, especially) Such a misuse involving some similarity of sound between the misused word and the appropriate word.
(rhetoric) A misapplication or overextension of a figurative or analogical description; a wrongly applied metaphor or trope.^[1]
- [1835, L[arret] Langley, A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster: Printed by C. White, Baxter-Gate, →OCLC, page 14:
  A Catachresis terms abused receives,
  And epithets and attributes improper gives.]

(misuse of a word, with similar sounds): malapropism (this word is sometimes used in a way hyponymic to catachresis, in which sense only absurd and laughable catachreses are malapropisms)
((rhetoric) bad metaphor or trope): abusio

misuse of a word

(rhetoric) bad metaphor or trope

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 “‖catachresis” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2^nd Ed.; 1989]

Borrowed from Ancient Greek κατάχρησις (katákhrēsis, “misuse (of a word)”).

catachrēsis f (genitive catachrēsis); third declension