Amos: But 'catachresis' has wider application than merely that of 'malapropism'; referring to any misuse of a word, thru inappropriateness, e.g., rather than only of mistaken substitution of a near homonym.

I remember, for instance, the main character in John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos denouncing "Mother Nature" as a catachresis, on the grounds that Nature, as an entity, is cruel and unfeeling, rather than warm & nurturing as that sentimental phrase would imply.

Worth wiki-ing to find the various applications of the word.

~M~