CADENCE.--In general, a term applied to the combined rhythm of a line or batch of lines. In one or two early passages of Wyntoun, Gower, and others, it seems to be employed in some special sense as opposed to, or separated from, rhyme, and has been conjectured to signify alliterative rhythm. But this is very uncertain, rather improbable, and in the Gower case impossible. (See p. 233.)
CÆSURA ("cutting").--A term applied, in classical prosody, to the regular provision of a word-ending at a certain place in the line, usually coinciding with a half-foot. The commonest cæsuras in Greek and Latin are penthemimeral ("fifth half"), or in the middle of the third foot, and hepthemimeral ("seventh half"), at the middle of the fourth. At one time, in the earlier writers on English prosody (_e.g._ Dryden), there grew up a strange habit of using the term "cæsura" to express elision or hiatus--to neither of which has it the least proper reference. Correctly used, it is, in English, equivalent to "pause" (_q.v._), but restricted to the _principal_ pause in a line.
CAROL.--A term, like "ballad," of rather loose application, but generally confined to religious lyrics of a definite song-kind. The original O.F. _karole_ referred to a rather elaborate _dance_ with singing, and from this there has been a certain tendency to associate the carol with much broken and indented measures in prosody.
CATALEXIS ("leaving off").--A term of great importance, inasmuch as there is no other single one which can replace it; but a little vague and elastic in use. Strictly speaking, a _catalectic_ line is one which comes short, by a half-foot or syllable, of the full normal measure; a _brachycatalectic_ ("short leaving off"), one which is a whole foot _minus_; and a _hypercatalectic_ ("leaving over"), one which has a half foot (or perhaps a whole one in rare cases) too much. The terms "catalexis" and "catalectic" are sometimes used loosely to cover all these varieties of deficiency and redundance in their several developments. _Acatalectic_ means a fully and exactly measured line, without either excess or defect.
CATCH.--See ANACRUSIS. The sense of "catch" as referring to a song in parts, with much substitution and repetition, is musical, not prosodic.