anachronism
UK/əˈnæ.kɹə.nɪ.z(ə)m/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
anachronism noun: a chronological mistake; the erroneous dating of an event, circumstance, or object.
Noun
anachronism (countable and uncountable, plural anachronisms)
- A chronological mistake; the erroneous dating of an event, circumstance, or object.
- 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 30, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
- [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 […]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...
- A person or thing which seems to belong to a different time or period of time.
- You are too young—it is an anachronism for you to have such thoughts1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XXII, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II, page 400
- 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.1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, page 32
- The aberrant projection of the present onto the past.
anachronism meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
anachronism in Tamil
- கால முரண்பாடு, காலத்திற்கு ஒவ்வாமை, காலத்திற்கொவ்வாமை
anachronism in Urdu
- غلط وقتیت
anachronism in Bengali
- কালানুক্রমিক ভুল
anachronism in Malayalam
- കാലഗണനയിലുള്ള തെറ്റ്, പഴഞ്ചനായ ആശയം, കാലത്തിനു ചേരാത്ത കാര്യം, കാലത്തിനനുരൂപമല്ലാത്തത്
More languagesFewer languages
- anachronism in Kannada
- ಕಾಲಕ್ರಮದ ದೋಷ, ಕಾಲಾಭಾಸ, ಕಾಲವಿಸಂಗತಿ, ಕಾಲದ ಹೊಂದಾಣಿಕೆಯಿಲ್ಲದುದು
- anachronism in Indonesian
- anakronisme
Examples of anachronism in a sentence
- We're also witnessing the passing of something even more profound - a culture of working-class masculinity that has become an anachronism in the modern world.2009 May 20, Margaret Wente, “We are witnessing the passing of working-class masculinity”, in The Globe and Mail, archived from the...
- It has been a colossal error by Davos Man left-wingers to think of nation-states as embarrassing anachronisms hostile to democracy.2017 March 28, Alan Johnson, “Why Brexit Is Best for Britain: The Left-Wing Case”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 09...
Forms of anachronism
| plural | anachronisms |
|---|
Origin of 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.
Words formed from anachronism
Questions about anachronism
- What does anachronism mean?
- Anachronism means a chronological mistake; the erroneous dating of an event, circumstance, or object.
- What is anachronism in Tamil?
- Anachronism in Tamil is கால முரண்பாடு, காலத்திற்கு ஒவ்வாமை, காலத்திற்கொவ்வாமை. See Anachronism meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use anachronism in a sentence?
- We're also witnessing the passing of something even more profound - a culture of working-class masculinity that has become an anachronism in the modern world.
- What part of speech is anachronism?
- Anachronism is a noun.
- How do you pronounce anachronism?
- Anachronism is pronounced /əˈnæ.kɹə.nɪ.z(ə)m/ (UK).
- What is the plural of anachronism?
- The plural of anachronism is anachronisms.
Words near anachronism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: anachronism (page history and authors); anachronism (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); anachronism (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); anachronism (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); anachronism (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); anachronism (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-ncalif-anachronism.ogg, en-au-anachronism.ogg.
Cite this entry: “anachronism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/anachronism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.