Definition of "caesura" [cae•su•ra]

• A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics. (noun)
• A pause or interruption, as in conversation: After another weighty caesura the senator resumed speaking. (noun)
• In Latin and Greek prosody, a break in a line caused by the ending of a word within a foot, especially when this coincides with a sense division. (noun)
• Music A pause or breathing at a point of rhythmic division in a melody. (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.

• "Among occasional variations of the normal strophe as here described may be mentioned the following: The end-rhyme is in a few instances feminine instead of masculine; while on the other hand the ending of the first half-lines is occasionally masculine instead of feminine, that is, the caesura is not "ringing.""
• "Still, he remembers one space offering a welcome caesura from the ormolu and swag: the Blue Room, which the Count used as his personal sitting area."
• ""Labor Day," from The Triumph of Achilles, is occasion only to remember her father's death a year ago, which the poet processes conclusively with this profound insight about the length of a human life: "Not a sentence, but a breath, a caesura.""