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.
Hannah Beech, New York Times, 1 May 2025
In times when digital reading is on the rise, a print magazine might be seen as both an anachronism and an ecological crime.
—Harper's Magazine, 19 Nov. 2024
In a culture full of celebrities breathlessly competing for our attention, Harrison Ford feels not just like an anachronism but an aberration — the movie star who really, really doesn’t want to be there.
—Tim Grierson, Vulture, 18 Feb. 2025
By the 1960s, nationalism looked rather worse than an anachronism.
—Jill Lepore, Foreign Affairs, 5 Feb. 2019
See All Example Sentences for anachronism
Cite this Entry
“Anachronism.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anachronism. Accessed 24 May. 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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