Definition of "anacoluthon" [an•a•co•lu•thon]

• An abrupt change within a sentence to a second construction inconsistent with the first, sometimes used for rhetorical effect; for example, I warned him that if he continues to drink, what will become of him? (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "She employed, not from any refinement of style, but in order to correct her imprudences, abrupt breaches of syntax not unlike that figure which the grammarians call anacoluthon or some such name."
• "We've talked about anacoluthon before, in this blog, and here's another instance."
• "What we have is technically described as an anacoluthon, defined eg by the OED as 'a construction lacking grammatical sequence'."