anacolutha
anacolutha is the plural of anacoluthon.
anacolutha is the alternative spelling of anacoloutha.
Meaning of anacoluthon
Noun
anacoluthon (countable and uncountable, plural anacolutha or anacoluthons)
- A sentence or clause that is grammatically inconsistent, especially with respect to the type of clausal or phrasal complement for the initial clause.
- Another species of anacoluthon is when, after the sentence is begun with a participle, the construction passes over into a finite verb, where we should naturally expect the participial construction to be continued.1835, Moses Stuart, A Treatise on the Syntax of the New Testament Dialect: With an Appendix, Containing a Dissertation on the Greek Article, Edinburgh: T. Clarke, →OCLC, page 249
- Intentional use of such a structure.
- Anacoluthon, though a grammatical defect, is a rhetorical beauty, if naturally produced or imitated; as, "If thou art he—but oh! how fallen!"1874, James Boyd, Elements of English Composition, Grammatical, Rhetorical, Logical, and Practical; Prepared for Academies and Schools, New York: A.S. Barnes, →OCLC, page 281
Meaning of anacoloutha
Noun
anacoloutha
- A non-reciprocal synonym; a word of meaning similar to a word but that cannot substitute for that word in all uses.
Questions about anacolutha
- What is anacolutha the plural of?
- Anacolutha is the plural of anacoluthon.
Words near anacolutha in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: anacolutha (page history and authors); anacoluthon (page history and authors); anacoloutha (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “anacolutha.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anacolutha. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.