catachresis
/ˌkatəˈkriːsɪs
/noun (plural catachreses /ˌkatəˈkriːsiːz/) [mass noun]
The use of a word in an incorrect way, for example the use of mitigate for militate.English and American studies, especially, seemed to be focusing on narrative and drama in ways that excluded from study bizarre and interesting phenomena such as obsessive rhythm and catachresis....
- Its transformation seems more catachresis than irony, more a twisted similarity than an inversion or negation.
Derivatives
catachrestic
- If the narrator's loss of a proper name were catachrestic - a radical misnaming - then we could posit a potential possession of his proper name by virtue of the presupposed latent proper name in the notion of ‘misnaming.’
- But these are not, properly speaking, assistants, but are called so only in a catachrestic manner, by a kind of abuse of language, for they are found in reality to be enemies to man.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from Latin, from Greek katakhrēsis, from katakhrēsthai 'misuse', from kata- 'down' (expressing the sense ‘wrongly’) + khrēsthai 'use'.