Word of the Day for Friday, April 11, 2008

caesura sih-ZHUR-uh; -ZUR-, noun;
plural caesuras or caesurae sih-ZHUR-ee; -ZUR-ee:

1. A break or pause in a line of verse, usually occurring in the middle of a line, and indicated in scanning by a double vertical line; for example, “The proper study || of mankind is man” [Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man].
2. Any break, pause, or interruption.

After an inconclusive day spent discussing the caesura of “Sonnet”‘s opening line, Luke and his colleagues went for cocktails at Strabismus.
— Martin Amis, Heavy Water and Other Stories

The crucial event of the Robedaux family occurs offscreen, in a narrative caesura between the film’s two “acts.”
— Richard Corliss, “The Patter of Little Footes”, Time, May 13, 1985