caesura

See also: cæsura

English

WOTD – 4 September 2006

Alternative forms

• cæsura

Etymology

(deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin caesūra (“cutting, hewing”), from caesus, perfect passive participle of caedō (“I cut down, hew”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɪˈzjʊəɹə/
• IPA^(key): /sɪˈʒʊɹə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

caesura (plural caesuras or caesurae)

1. A pause or interruption in a poem, music, building, or other work of art.
2. (Classical prosody) Using two words to divide a metrical foot.
3. (typography) The caesura mark ‖ or ||.
4. (rarely) A break of an era or other measure of history and time; where one era ends and another begins.

Usage notes

In poetry bearing caesuras, it is marked by a double vertical line.

Synonyms

• (typography): virgule (in its obsolete form as a single slash)

Translations

a pause or interruption

• Albanian: cezurë (sq) f
• Catalan: cesura f
• Dutch: cesuur (nl)
• Finnish: tauko (fi)
• French: césure (fr) f
• German: Zäsur (de) f
• Hungarian: cezúra (hu)
• Japanese: 中間休止 (ちゅうかんきゅうし, chūkan kyūshi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: cesura (pt) f
• Russian: цезу́ра (ru) f (cezúra)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: цезура f

  Roman: cezura (sh) f

• Spanish: cesura f
• Swedish: cesur (sv) c

using two words to divide a metrical foot

• Albanian: cezurë (sq) f
• Finnish: kesuura (fi)
• French: césure (fr) f
• German: Zäsur (de) f
• Portuguese: cesura (pt) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: цезу́ра (ru) f (cezúra)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: цезура f

  Roman: cezura (sh) f

See also

• enjambment
• hemistich

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Latin

Etymology

From caedō +‎ -tūra.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /kae̯ˈsuː.ra/, [käe̯ˈs̠uːrä]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃeˈsu.ra/, [t͡ʃeˈs̬uːrä]

Noun

caesūra f (genitive caesūrae); first declension

1. a cutting, felling, hewing down
2. a pause in a verse, caesura

Declension

First-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	caesūra	caesūrae
Genitive	caesūrae	caesūrārum
Dative	caesūrae	caesūrīs
Accusative	caesūram	caesūrās
Ablative	caesūrā	caesūrīs
Vocative	caesūra	caesūrae

Synonyms

• (caesura): incīsiō
• (cutting): caesus, sectiō

Related terms

Related terms

• caedēs
• caedō
• caeduus
• caelāmen

• caelātor
• caelātūra
• caelō
• caelum

• caesa
• caesim
• caesiō
• caesor

• caespes
• caesum
• caesus

Descendants

• Catalan: cesura
• → Dutch: cesuur
• → English: caesura
• French: césure
• → German: Zäsur
• Italian: cesura
• Portuguese: cesura
• Spanish: cesura

References

• “caesura”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• caesura in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• caesura in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.