anachronism

From New Latin anachronismus, from Ancient Greek ἀναχρονισμός (anakhronismós), from ἀναχρονίζομαι (anakhronízomai, “referring to the wrong time”), from ἀνά (aná, “up against”) + χρονίζω (khronízō, “spending time”), from χρόνος (khrónos, “time”). Analyzable as ana- +‎ chrono- +‎ -ism.

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) enPR: ənăkʹrənĭzm, ənăkʹrənĭzəm; IPA^(key): /əˈnæ.kɹə.nɪ.z(ə)m/

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anachronism (countable and uncountable, plural anachronisms)

1. A chronological mistake; the erroneous dating of an event, circumstance, or object. [from 17th c.]
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 30, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:

     Indeed, that Hall of the Upper Temple is a sight not uninteresting, and with the exception of some trifling improvements and anachronisms which have been introduced into the practice there, a man may sit down and fancy that he joins in a meal of the seventeenth century.

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 53, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:

     [W]e beg the reader to understand that we only commit anachronisms when we choose and when by a daring violation of those natural laws some great ethical truth is to be advanced […]

2. A person or thing which seems to belong to a different time or period of time. [from 19th c.]
   • 1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXII, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 948783829, book II, page 400:

     You are too young—it is an anachronism for you to have such thoughts

   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 32:

     His movements, his clothes, everything about him, seemed slightly out of place in this assembly. He spoiled the pattern; like Alvin, he was an anachronism.

   • 1971, Ken Welsh, Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe, revised and updated edition, London: Pan, published 1975, page 142:

     There exist in Europe a number of independent or semi-independent countries which are complete anachronisms, they are mini-countries which have little business existing in this hurly-burly century, but somehow they survive.

3. The aberrant projection of the present onto the past.

• anachronism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Anachronism”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume I (A–B), London: Clarendon Press, OCLC 15566697, page 300, column 2.

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