Catachresis

Catachresis (from Greek κατάχρησις, 'abuse'), originally meaning a semantic misuse or error—e.g., using 'militate' for 'mitigate', 'chronic' for 'severe', 'travesty' for 'tragedy', 'anachronism' for 'anomaly', 'alibi' for 'excuse', etc.—is also the name given to many different types of figures of speech in which a word or phrase is being applied in a way that significantly departs from conventional (or traditional) usage.Masters of this will say, Catachresis (from Greek κατάχρησις, 'abuse'), originally meaning a semantic misuse or error—e.g., using 'militate' for 'mitigate', 'chronic' for 'severe', 'travesty' for 'tragedy', 'anachronism' for 'anomaly', 'alibi' for 'excuse', etc.—is also the name given to many different types of figures of speech in which a word or phrase is being applied in a way that significantly departs from conventional (or traditional) usage.