anachronism
Use Anachronism in a sentence
rəˌnɪz noun
1.
something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time: The sword is an anachronism in modern warfare.
Compare parachronism, prochronism.
Origin:
1640–50; < Latin anachronismus < Greek anachronismós a wrong time reference, equivalent to anachron(ízein) to make a wrong time reference (see ana-, chron-, -ize) + -ismos -ism
1640–50; < Latin anachronismus < Greek anachronismós a wrong time reference, equivalent to anachron(ízein) to make a wrong time reference (see ana-, chron-, -ize) + -ismos -ism
Related forms
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source
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Link To anachronism
00:10
Anachronism
is a GRE word you need to know.
So is banal. Does it mean:
| devoid of freshness or originality; hackneyed; trite: |
| a person, animal, or thing that goes before and indicates the approach of someone or something else; harbinger: |
Collins
World English Dictionary
anachronism (əˈnækrəˌnɪzəm) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | the representation of an event, person, or thing in a historical context in which it could not have occurred or existed |
| 2. | a person or thing that belongs or seems to belong to another time: she regards the Church as an anachronism |
| [C17: from Latin anachronismus, from Greek anakhronismos a mistake in chronology, from anakhronizein to err in a time reference, from | |
| anachro'nistic | |
| —adj | |
| anachro'nistically | |
| —adv | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History
anachronism
1640s, "an error in computing time or finding dates," from L. anachronismus, from Gk. anachronismos, from anachronizein "refer to wrong time," from ana- "against" + khronos "time." Meaning "something out of harmony with the present" first recorded 1816. Related: Anachronistic (1775).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia
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.
Learn more about anachronism with a free trial on Britannica.com.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Example sentences
These days few share my epistolary penchant, which is dismissed as a doomed anachronism.
Yet those same events may have rendered him an anachronism.
The greeting, like the man, is something of a Hollywood anachronism.
Clearly that is a bit of anachronism that no longer fits any reality.
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