Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Involving or characterized by the incorrect use of a word: Describes something that constitutes, is characterized by, or is given to catachresis. Catachresis is a rhetorical term for the strained, paradoxical, or incorrect use of a word, often as a mixed metaphor or a substitution for a word that does not exist.

Usage

• The adjective catachrestical is a formal, literary, and somewhat rare term used primarily in rhetorical or linguistic analysis. It describes language, expressions, or usage that is marked by catachresis.
• It is typically used attributively (before a noun) or predictively (after a linking verb like 'is' or 'seems').

Examples

• The poet's catachrestical imagery, describing "the leg of a table" as having a "foot," was deliberately jarring.
• His argument relied on a catachrestical interpretation of the legal text, forcing a meaning the words could not logically bear.
• The phrase "blind mouths" in Milton's work is a famous catachrestical expression.

Advanced Usage

• In Literary Criticism: Used to analyze deliberate stylistic choices where words are wrenched from their usual context for effect.
  • The critic praised the author's catachrestical genius, which created powerful new meanings through linguistic violation.
• In Linguistic Description: Used to label an error or an unconventional but established usage.
  • The term "dial a number" on a touch-tone phone is a catachrestical survival from the era of rotary dials.

Variants and Related Words

• Catachresis (n): The rhetorical figure or instance itself; the incorrect use of a word.
  • The metaphor "a sea of troubles" is so common it is no longer considered a catachresis.
• Catachrestically (adv): In a catachrestical manner.
  • The word was used catachrestically to fill a lexical gap.

Synonyms

• Figurative (in a broad sense, but specifically incorrect or strained)
• Misapplied
• Forced
• Abusive (in the rhetorical sense of "abuse of language")

Antonyms

• Literal
• Correct
• Proper
• Conventional (in standard usage)

Notes

• Catachrestical is closely related to but distinct from metaphorical. All catachresis is metaphorical, but it is a specifically improper, extreme, or paradoxical kind of metaphor (e.g., "the of a chair" is a conventional, accepted metaphor, while "to a concept" began as a catachresis but is now standard).
• The term often carries a neutral or analytical tone in scholarship but can imply criticism in general usage when describing unintentional error.

Adjective

1. constituting or characterized by or given to catachresis