caesura

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin caesūra (“a cutting; a metrical pause”),^[2][3][4][5] from caesus (“cut”), the past participle of caedō (“to cut, cut down”),^[3][5][6] from Proto-Indo-European *kae-id- (“to strike”).^[4][5] The earlier English form, anglicized as “ceasure”,^[3] came directly from French césure.^[2] The OED adds that some writers appear to have linked the word mistakenly with cease.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A pause near the middle of a line of verse: Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date it to 1556,^[3][7] Etymonline to the 1550s,^[4] while the OED's first record of this sense, in English prosody, is M. Parker's Whole Psalter of about 1567.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The English use with the pause in the middle of the line, often matching a pause in the sense, came first; the strict classical meaning, a word ending inside a metrical foot as opposed to diaeresis, which falls between feet, is in the OED only from Chambers's Cyclopædia (1728).^[2][4] In between, Phillips's dictionary (1678) and Johnson (1755) used the term for the lengthening of a short final syllable at that point: Johnson calls it “a figure in poetry, by which a short syllable after a complete foot is made long”,^[2][8] a sense Merriam-Webster Unabridged marks obsolete.^[7] Outside verse, Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590) has a formal stop,^[2] and since 1846 the word has meant any break or interval.^[2][9] Collins also records a pause in the rhythm of music.^[10] A short-lived verb, to utter with a caesura in a sing-song style, appears in 1661.^[2]

Timeline

• 1556 – a pause in a line of verse, as anglicized ceasure.^[3][7] The OED's first record is of about 1567.^[2]
• 1590 – a formal break or stop.^[2]
• 1661 – verb, to utter with a caesura (obsolete).^[2]
• 1678 – the lengthening of a final syllable at this point in the line.^[2]
• 1728 – in Greek and Latin prosody, the division of a metrical foot between two words.^[2]
• 1846 – a break, interruption or interval.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. In modern prosody, a pause near the middle of a line of verse, usually following the sense.^[10][2][9]
2. In Greek and Latin prosody, a break made by a word ending within a metrical foot.^[10][7][2]
3. A pause in the rhythm of a piece of music.^[10]
4. A break or interruption in general: a long caesura in the peace talks.^[2][9]
5. (obsolete) The lengthening of the last syllable of a word at such a break.^[7][2][8]

Word family

• caesural

Related words

• concise
• excise
• cement

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins