anachronism
noun
Joyce Maynard 
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An anachronism is an error of chronology in which something, such as an object or event, is placed in the wrong time. Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar includes a famous anachronism, with Cassius alluding to a mechanical clock (“The clock hath stricken three”) in a play whose events take place more than a thousand years before mechanical clocks were invented. Anachronism has its roots in Greek chronos, “time,” and ana-, a Greek prefix meaning “up,” “back,” or “again.” Anachronisms historically were sometimes distinguished from parachronisms, chronology errors in which an event is placed later than it occurred. Both anachronism and parachronism (and also the latter’s now-obsolete synonym metachronism) date to the 17th century, but only anachronism has stood the test of time.
Examples of anachronism in a Sentence
Jean Van't Hul, Mothering, March/April 2009
The spy thriller is a genre that arguably should have died fifteen years ago, and its continued popularity seems an anachronism at first glance.
—Rand Richards Cooper, Commonweal, 14 Sept. 2007
With few exceptions, work opportunities for older people diminished after the Civil War as the United States metamorphosed into an urban-industrial order, inaugurating a second phase in the history of retirement. The village blacksmith became an anachronism as the craftsman retreated before the new mass-production industries.
—W. Andrew Achenbaum, Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2006
But Shakespeare may have drifted into anachronism here. According to Rogers, food in France at the time of Agincourt was probably just as meaty and unsophisticated as it was in England.
—Jonathan Ree, Prospect, August, 2003
It is true that in the closing years of the century William Jennings Bryan could still rise to national political leadership through his superb oratorical skills, but it is equally true that he lived to see himself become an anachronism, the bearer of a style redolent of an earlier culture.
—Lawrence W. Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 1993
The novel is full of anachronisms.
He's an old-fashioned politician who is seen by many of his colleagues as an anachronism.
Andrew Nusca, Fortune, 27 June 2025
And no one wants to whip out the ultimate anachronism—a laptop—in the lobby store that looks like a Midwestern grandma’s living room melded with a Swiss grandma’s chalet.
—Elise Taylor, Vogue, 25 June 2025
The Plus 8 may be the quintessential Morgan, conceived at a time when the British automaker’s four-cylinder cars were quickly becoming anachronisms, and long before BMW power came to the rescue.
—Robert Ross, Robb Report, 30 May 2025
In places, the anachronism did produce some exciting friction: Matisse’s four relief bronzes of women’s backs, borrowing from the massing and stylization of African sculpture, hung alongside six ornery watercolors of nude women by the contemporary South African painter Marlene Dumas.
—Jason Farago, New York Times, 8 May 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Anachronism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anachronism. Accessed 5 Jul. 2025.
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anachronism
noun
probably from Greek anachronismos "anachronism," derived from earlier anachronizein "to be late," from ana- "up" and chronos "time" — related to chronic, chronicle, synchronous
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