What does caesurae mean?
Caesurae are the pauses or breaks that occur within a line of poetry, dividing it into two parts. The term is simply the plural of caesura, a concept central to the study of meter and prosody. In many verse traditions the caesura is not optional but structural: Old English alliterative poems such as Beowulf require each long line to be split by a pause into two half-lines, while classical Greek and Latin hexameter conventionally places a break near the middle of the line. Modern critics distinguish types such as strong and weak, or masculine and feminine, caesurae depending on where the break falls relative to the stress pattern. Writers and readers value caesurae because they shape a poem's breathing, pacing, and emphasis. The Latinate plural caesurae is preferred in academic contexts, though caesuras is equally standard in everyday literary discussion.
noun (plural)The plural of caesura: pauses or breaks occurring within a line of poetry, typically near its middle, marking a rhythmic division between two parts of a verse.
- Plural of caesura: breaks or pauses in the middle of a line of verse, especially those conventionally required by a metrical pattern such as alliterative verse.
"The Old English epic Beowulf relies heavily on caesurae, splitting each long line into two balanced half-lines."
"Milton's blank verse flows so smoothly partly because his caesurae fall at unexpected points, keeping the rhythm from becoming monotonous."
"Students learning to scan Anglo-Saxon poetry must first learn to identify the four positions where caesurae may occur within a line."
Caesurae is itself a plural form, following the Latin fourth-declension-style ending; caesuras is the common anglicized plural. Both are correct, with caesurae more frequent in scholarly writing.
"Careful placement of caesurae gives the free verse an underlying pulse without imposing strict meter."
In Beowulf, every single line of verse has one — a built-in breath in the middle of each line that English poets have been borrowing for over a thousand years.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of caesurae
Caesurae is the Latin plural of caesura, from Latin caedere, meaning 'to cut' — literally 'a cutting.' The term entered English in the mid-16th century as scholars of classical literature adopted Latin terminology for Greek and Roman metrics. It shares its root with words like incise, concise, and decide, all of which involve a notion of cutting or determining by cutting. In English usage it has always belonged to the specialized vocabulary of poetics.
How caesurae is actually used
"Caesurae" is the Latinate plural, favored in scholarly and philological writing; "caesuras" is the more common anglicized form in general usage. The word belongs to formal literary-critical register and is rarely used outside discussions of prosody.
Easily confused with caesurae
Caesuras and caesurae are both accepted plural forms of caesura; caesurae follows the Latin declension while caesuras uses the anglicized -s ending.
Cesarean refers to a surgical method of childbirth, whereas caesurae are poetic pauses; the words share only a distant Latin root relating to cutting.