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anachronism - 5 dictionary results

a⋅nach⋅ro⋅nism

  [uh-nak-ruh-niz-uhm]
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–noun
1. something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, esp. a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time: The sword is an anachronism in modern warfare.
2. an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one: To assign Michelangelo to the 14th century is an anachronism.

Origin:
1640–50; < L anachronismus < Gk anachronismós a wrong time reference, equiv. to anachron(ízein) to make a wrong time reference (see ana-, chron-, -ize ) + -ismos -ism

Related forms:
an⋅a⋅chron⋅i⋅cal⋅ly  [an-uh-kron-ik-lee] , adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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a·nach·ro·nism   (ə-nāk'rə-nĭz'əm)   
n.  
  1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order.
  2. One that is out of its proper or chronological order, especially a person or practice that belongs to an earlier time: "A new age had plainly dawned, an age that made the institution of a segregated picnic seem an anachronism" (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.)

[French anachronisme, from New Latin anachronismus, from Late Greek anakhronismos, from anakhronizesthai, to be an anachronism : Greek ana-, ana- + Greek khronizein, to take time (from khronos, time).]
a·nach'ro·nis'tic, a·nach'ro·nous (-nəs) adj., a·nach'ro·nis'ti·cal·ly, a·nach'ro·nous·ly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Anachronism

An*ach"ro*nism\, n. [Gr. ?, fr. ? to refer to a wrong time, to confound times; ? + ? time: cf. F. anachronisme.] A misplacing or error in the order of time; an error in chronology by which events are misplaced in regard to each other, esp. one by which an event is placed too early; falsification of chronological relation.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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anachronism 
c.1646, "an error in computing time or finding dates," from L. anachronismus, from Gk. anachronismos, from anachronizein "refer to wrong time," from ana- "against" + khronizein "spend time," from khronos "time." Meaning "something out of harmony with the present" first recorded 1816.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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anachronism

(from Greek ana, "back," and chronos, "time"), neglect or falsification, intentional or not, of chronological relation. It is most frequently found in works of imagination that rest on a historical basis, in which appear details borrowed from a later age; e.g., a clock in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, an attendant to the Pharaoh shod in tennis shoes in Cecil B. deMille's The Ten Commandments. Anachronisms originate in disregard of the different modes of life and thought that characterize different periods or in ignorance of the facts of history.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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