Caesura
/sɪˈzjʊə.rə/noun
A pause or break in a line of poetry or in a musical phrase.
Did you know?The word comes from Latin caesura, “a cutting,” from caedere, “to cut,” the same root behind words like incision and excision—so poets have been using a word of slicing to describe silence for centuries.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*keh₂i- / *kaid-
“to cut, strike, or hew”
Latin
Latin
caedere
“to cut, strike down, or kill”
Classical Latin
Latin
caesura
“a cutting; in verse, a break or pause”
Late Latin / Medieval Latin
Latin
caesura
“a pause in poetic meter”
16th Century
English
caesura
“a metrical pause or break in a line of verse”
Modern English
English
caesura
“a pause or break in poetry, speech, or music”