tmesis /tə-MEE-sis/. noun. The splitting of a word by interjecting one or more other words. Similar to last week’s diacope but at the level of word rather than phrase. The use of a curse word as the intervening word, as in un-fucking-believable, is the most common example in English and is called expletive infixation. From Greek tmēsis (cutting).
“Oh so loverly sittin’
Abso-bloomin-lutely still.
I would never budge
Til Spring crept over the window sill.”
(George Bernard Shaw)
“I greatly admire [Peter Lubin’s] definition of tmesis (Type I) as a «semantic petticoat slipped on between the naked noun and its clothing epithet»” (Vladimir Nabokov)
“This is not Romeo. He’s some other where.” (William Shakespeare)
“It’s gettin’ to be ri-goddamn-diculous around here.” (John Wayne)
“It’s a sort of long cocktail—he got the formula off a barman in Marrakesh or some-bloody-where.” (Kingsley Amis)